60 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



Samuel Taylor, ^Ir George Butler on the Admiral, Mr. Frede- 

 rick Heysham on Ollipod, and Mr. CoUyer. Sawyer, talking 

 it over, said, ' I think we all came down that day.' " 



We have heard of foxes beating their pursuers repeatedly, 

 by leaping into a tree, or running along the top of a fence ; 

 but Tom Hills, the last season he hunted the old Surrey, was 

 baffled in a curious manner. I quote the account as it ap- 

 peared in "County Quarters," Baily, April, 1876 : — 



" The season before Tom gave up the old Surrey, he found 

 the same old ' stumpy ' fox three consecutive fortnights at 

 Tye Copse, which always took them a clipper down to Julian's 

 (where Mr. Herries, the banker, lived) into some laurels, where 

 he was lost. The reason was that he ran to a little cascade, and 

 up or down the stream, where there was a big hole in a rock, 

 into which he jumped. One of the gardeners found out his 

 secret, the hole was stopped, and Tom could have brought him 

 to hand, but he was spared, and eventually killed in Banstead 

 Park, having buried himself under some leaves." 



Most of us have seen the print of the fox being done to 

 death in a cottage, greatly to the chagrin of an old lady, who is 

 trying to keep the pack out with a broom ; and I am not pre- 

 pared to say whether the affair really took place as delineated, 

 or the picture is merely apocryphal. The following, however, 

 happened with Mr. Tailby's hounds on January 27th, 1876 : — 



"They met at Ilston-on-the-Hill, and found at Hardwicke 

 a fox who broke away without being holloaed, so that hounds 

 settled well to the scent, and ran to the right of JSToseley, over 

 the brook to Staunton Wood, then a very fast ring on the 

 farther side, and back to the wood. Here they rattled him for 

 about a quarter of an hour, when he broke, recrossed the brook 

 to Hardwicke, when he turned by Shankton Holt, across the 

 Gartree road, to the right of Carlton Hall, over the brook to 

 the back of Burton Overy, across the Burton brook to Glen 

 Oaks, down to Mr. Simson's at Glen, and then to Stretton 

 Hall, where, with three couple of hounds close at his brush, he 



