44 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



A stranger to the sport would scarcely imagine the length of 

 the runs afforded by these little animals ; ten or fifteen miles is 

 not unfrequent, often nearly straight, and on some occasions 

 they have run twenty miles from point to point ! 



" ' The pace of these hounds with the foumart, when the scent 

 lies well, is not unlike that of good harriers ; but I call the sport 

 more interesting from the greater length and straightness of the 

 runs, affording some faint approximation to fox-hunting. The 

 male foumart, like the dog-fox, affords better sport than the 

 female. Lest I may seem to have been describing some animal 

 unknown to either the sportsman or naturalist of the south of 

 England, I must add that the * foumart ' is the name given to 

 the fitchet in those countries in which it is hunted, and is the 

 term Captain Hopwood always uses ; and as this neighbourhood 

 is so much indebted to liim for the introduction of a kind of 

 sport peculiarly suited to its rough nature, he has the best pos- 

 sible right to call by his own name the little animals thus sud- 

 denly invested with importance. It is needless to add that 

 Captain Hopwood's establishment, both here and at Hopwood 

 (in Lancashire), is conducted in the best style, both as to diet 

 and breeding of the dogs. The mode of hunting in Lancashire 

 may present some trilling variations from what I have witnessed 

 in this country, and, owing to the lateness of our crops here, 

 the sport may be pursued six weeks or two months later than 

 it can there, having only closed last week.' 



" I wish the writer of the above excellent letter had favoured 

 me with a sketch of the foumart. My notion of the fitchet is 

 that it is an animal too small for the chase. A polecat — and 

 such I imagine is the one in question — is equal ^ to anything 

 requiring wind and speed as the means of escape from slow 

 dogs. A terrier now in my room killed one in my stable-yard, 

 three years back, measuring, from the snout to the tip of the 

 tail, a good yard. He bit the dog on the nose, and severely, 



2 Query, did not Nimrod mean unequal ? 



