i / O COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



means lie took to ensure sport in it. First of all, lie commenced 

 hunting four days a week himself in the best parts ; and as it 

 is well known that the more foxes are hunted the more you will 

 have, it was not very long before he was able to increase his 

 own hunting days to six. At the same time, his huntsman 

 went every Wednesday intoWherwell Wood, and every Saturday 

 to the great woodlands to the south ; thus, by keeping these 

 strongholds well routed, he sent foxes into the better portions 

 of the hunt, gave his young hounds plenty of work, and, what 

 was of more consequence, prevented the destruction of foxes, 

 which is sure to take place when a covert is not well and regu- 

 larly hunted. What an influence this must have had on sport 

 will be best understood when I say I have been informed, 

 on good authority, that, in one wood alone, fifty brace of 

 foxes were destroyed in one season since it has ceased to be 

 hunted. This not only increased his own sport, but that of his 

 neighbours, and both the Yiiie and the Hursley benefited by 

 that large woodland not lying fallow. To his own hounds it 

 was of the greatest advantage, as, by sending all the young and 

 the oldest ones to these places, he kept the pick of the kennel 

 for the best country ; and no hound went out in his own pack 

 that was not steady, able to run to head, and do his part in the 

 business of the day. Hence the celebrity of his hounds. It 

 was like commanding a regiment of picked men. As Harry 

 Hieover says, " Nearly all hounds can go individually fast 

 enough." It is the head they carry, and the dash they show, 

 that makes the difference between fast and slow hunting. By 

 thus ordering his country, he not only taught foxes to fly, but 

 drove them out of the large coverts ; and from the gorse patches 

 on Salisbury Plain got those short, sharp, and decisive gallops 

 that he had been accustomed to in the shires, lacking only the 

 fencing. Another very favourite resort for foxes is the nume- 

 rous ozier holts and reed beds to be found all up the sides of 

 the streams which, at intervals of four or five miles, intersect 

 Salisbury Plain. Found in these, there is no shelter in which 



