THOUGHTS UPON HUNTING. 277-. 



pose. Sornie sportsmen are more lucky in their days than 

 others. If you hunt every other day, it is possible they 

 may be all bad, and the intermediate days all. good : an in- 

 different pack, therefore, by hunting on good days, may kill 

 foxes, without any merit ; and a good pack, notwithstand- 

 ing all their exertion, may lose foxes which they deserved to 

 kill. Had 1 a sufficiency of hounds, I would hunt on every 

 good day, and never on a bad one*. 



A PERFECT knowledge of his country, certainly, is a great 

 help to a huntsman : if yours, as yet, should have it not, 

 great allowance ought to be made. The trotting away with 

 hounds, to make a long and knowing cast, is a privilege 

 which a new huntsman cannot pretend to : an experienced 

 one may safely say, A fox has made for such a cover — when 

 he has known, perhaps, that nine out of ten, with the wind 

 in the same quarter, have constantly gone thither; 



* On windy days, or such as are not likely to afFord any scent for 

 hounds, it is better, I think, to send them to be exercised on the turnpike- 

 road ; it will do them less harm than hunting with them might do ; and 

 inore good than if they were to remain confined in their kennel ; for 

 though nothing makes hounds so handy as taking them out often, nothing 

 inclines them sO much to riot, as taking them oot to hunt when there is 

 little of no scent, and particularly on windy days, when they cannot hear 

 One another, 



O 2 



