222 THOUGHTS UPON HUNTING. 



srile of fox-hunting, which, perhaps, may suit the country 

 in which that gentleman hunts. I confess to you, 1 do 

 not think that it would succeed in a bad-scenting country, 

 or, indeed, in any country where foxes are wild. While 

 hounds can get on with the scent, it cannot be right to 

 take them off from it ; but when they are stopped for want 

 of it, it cannot then be wrong to give them every ?idvantagQ 

 in your power. 



It is wrong to suffer hounds to hunt after others that 



are gone on with the scent, particularly in cover ; for how 



are they to get up to them with a worse scent ? — Besides, 



it makes them tie on the scent, teaches them to run dogj 



and destroys that laudable ambition of getting forward 



which is the chief excellence of a fox-hound. A good 



huntsman will seldom suffer his head hounds to run away 



from him : if it should so happen, and they be still within 



his hearing, he will sink the wind with the rest of the 



pack, and get to them as fast as he can. — Though I 



suffer not a pack of fox-hounds to hunt after such as 



V may be a long way before the rest, for reasons which I 



have just givep j yet, when a single hound is gone on 



with the scent, 1 send a whipper-in to stop him. Were 





