70 BAGGING FOXES AT MALLAHO W 



passion, and he wasted fully ten minutes in casting 

 about. Meanwhile, I went up to the men to make a 

 few inquiries of them, and after much persuasion 1 

 proved that I was correct in my surmise, and that they 

 had taken the fox with the greyhound. Eventually, 

 they returned it to me in a bag, luckily unhurt by the 

 greyhound. It had, however, broken a toe, which I 

 fancy occurred when jumping the demesne wall at 

 Kilbrew. Our master insisted on my giving it to 

 blood the hounds if it was damaged, but 1 begged for 

 it to be put back again into my covert, and we did so. 

 It appeared to be all right then, but what became of it 

 I don't know, as we never saw it again. 



It used to be a very common trick in those days, 

 in the part of the country into which we ran, to take 

 foxes alive when the chance occurred, as the master of 

 the Finglass Harriers gave a sovereign for every live 

 fox brought to him, there being no foxhounds in that 

 district, and hints to this effect were doubtless given 

 when the harriers were about Mallahow. However, 

 that is all changed for the better now, and foxes often 

 cross over to Westown, a covert in the Louth country. 

 The staghounds also very frequently cross this 

 country, but do no harm whatever to the fox-hunting, 

 for I have more than once seen a fox looking back at 

 the hounds going in a contrary direction, after having 

 been disturbed out of a furze-ditch or gorse-covert and 

 then return to lie down again, the staghounds never 

 leaving the stronger scent of the deer for the fox. 



I have, when I kept harriers, experienced some 

 difficulty in getting them to hunt deer, but they pre- 

 ferred foxes to hares, the reverse being the case with 

 staghounds ; but eventually I succeeded in getting 



