RIGHT OF COUNTRY. 27 



hounds shall enter to draw for a fox, without trespassing 

 upon lands within the acknowledged boundary of the 

 country hunted by another established pack of 

 hounds, a transgression beyond which, is considered 

 by the hunting world, dishonourable and unsportsman- 

 like. 



If a huntsman pursues his fox beyond his own 

 country, he has a right to endeavour to kill him, even 

 if he should enter a favourite cover of another hunt ; 

 if he goes to ground in a strange country, he may be 

 bolted by a terrier, but not by digging, as no spade 

 nor substitute for a spade, must be used, in fact, the 

 ground must not be broken ; he may be washed out, 

 in case of his going into a drain leading from a pond, 

 where the water can be let into the drain by a sluice ; 

 he may be also bolted from a drain by inserting a 

 lighted whisp of straw at one end of it. The 

 New Sporting Magazine, records an instance of a 

 fox being bolted from a drain by a person blowing at 

 one end of it, the horn of the guard of a mail coach 

 which happened to come up at the time, when the fox 

 went to ground.* 



It is well known, that in this country the absolute 

 and undisputed right in landed property extends " usque 

 ad ccelum,' and that a person is undoubtedly at liberty, 

 by the law of the land, to do what he likes with his 

 own ; but although by this enactment it is legally in 

 his power to determine whom he shall permit to hunt 

 his covers, the bye-laws of fox-hunting have decided 

 quite differently, as the right of drawing those covers 

 would, without the least doubt, belong to that hunt, 



• Vide New Sporting Magazine, vol. xi, p. 95. 



