Late seasons and harvest in the north, 131 



period for the commencement of cub-hunting varies 

 exceedingly ; in some countries, where the limits of 

 the hunt are not extensive, and the foxes rather 

 scarce, the covers cannot be broken until the middle of 

 September; but in many others it is the usual custom to 

 begin the first week in August, or at any rate as soon 

 as the corn is sufficiently cut to allow of it. By a 

 book published some years since entitled, "The Ope- 

 rations of the Belvoir Hounds," it appears that in the 

 year 1808, His Grace the Duke of Rutland com- 

 menced as early as the fourth of July; even supposing 

 the corn to be cut,* few packs could begin so early 

 as that, as the necessary destruction of young foxes 

 would be far greater than most countries could afford. 

 But when, by the number of the litters in the Belvoir 

 country which were returned, averaged about sixty- 

 five or seventy, and during some seasons the number 

 of foxes which were killed amounted to nearly seventy 

 brace, two or three brace having been murdered in a 

 morning in the early part of the season, we cannot 

 wonder at there being some impatience to commence 

 operations. In the Earl of Yarborough's country, 

 which is far too extensive for any one pack of hounds 

 to hunt regularly and impartially, the foxes are so 

 numerous, that the whippers-in and earth stoppers are 

 frequently employed, during the frost and snow, in 

 digging and destroying them in places which are ill 



* In the north tlie harvest is always, of course, much later than in the midland 

 and more southern districts, even when the season may be genial ; but the close of 

 the year 18.'59, and the commencement of 1840, presented scenes whicli few of 

 the oldest of our cotemporariea can, I should suppose, remember. In December, 

 and also in the January ensuing, it constantly occurred in the IloUlerness 

 country, while hunting, to pass throuo^h fields of beans and oats, in which the 

 farmers were employed in leading or caj tying them. 



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