O VER-ANXIETY OF YOUNG MASTERS OF HOUNDS 91 



at last. Had I secured him 'the first time of asking' 

 there would have been nothing in the performance. A 

 friend of mine, since dead, similarly stalked a stag for 

 fifteen seasons, and got him in the end. This is surely 

 patience with a vengeance ! If a little more matter-of- 

 fact patience were used by masters of hounds they 

 would kill more foxes. 



It is over-anxiety in hunting and shooting alike 

 which is the cause of spoiling many a day which would 

 have otherwise been successful. The over-anxious 

 master makes his field as anxious as himself, and thus 

 everything tends to hustle the unfortunate pack at the 

 very time when they are doing their best to puzzle out 

 a bad scent, although their fox may be only just gone 

 away before them. The hard-riding, hurrying division 

 imagine thereby that the scent must necessarily be a 

 burning one, the fox being hardly out of view ; but 

 notwithstanding such may be the case, how often do 

 we find hounds of twenty-five inches, or less, unable 

 to work out a scent, even though they may be laid 

 on the fox itself at times '^ I have known the ex- 

 pression ' Out of sight, out of scent,' a common one 

 with some packs with whom I have been acquainted. 

 The Royal Meath have been blessed with the very best 

 scenting grass-country in the United Kingdom, and if 

 hounds cannot hunt there, the fault lies with the 

 executive committee from the above-mentioned faults, 

 or else in the strain of blood. A hound that will not 

 ' speak to them ' in Meath is useless in any country, in 

 my opinion, judging from the great success we had 

 with the Meath at one time, and also with the Ratoath 

 and other packs of harriers. Every hound should 

 speak, and not flash. 



