158 ON HANDLING A PACK OF HOUNDS. 



*' ir est done apropos qu'il soit homme de jugement, 

 vigoureux et hardy, a fin qu'il n'apprehende pas de 

 franchir, et sauter un fosse, ou les branches et les 

 epines le pourront egratiner, et s'il le rencontre 

 bon sonneur, il s'en sera mieux entendre, eten don- 

 nera plus d'emotion aux chiens,* 



There are, undoubtedly, some few first-rate per- 

 formers as "gentlemen huntsmen," but taking all 

 things into consideration, a master of hounds had 

 much better give up that part of the business to " a 

 professional,'''' according to the modern state of afifairs, 

 they are not in their places, and as Mr. Bunn, in his 

 book entitled "The Stage," justly observes, that when 

 "actors are managers and actors too, they certainly 

 labour under a great disadvantage." Nascitur venator, 

 non fit, is equally applicable to huntsmen as poets, 

 and to tell a man how to hunt a pack of hounds, and 

 kill foxes, on paper, is absurd, his actions must be 

 guided by circumstances entirely, there are no general 

 rules for drawing, casting, or following the line of a 

 fox ; but in working a pack of hounds over a country, 

 if more confidence were placed in the noses of the ani- 

 mals, than in the huntsman's skill in forcing and lifting, 

 not only more foxes would be killed but far better runs 

 would be ensured. When a huntsman does exhibit 

 his own scientific manceuvres, let him combine patience 

 with quickness, and watchfulness with cool determi- 

 nation ; when " the field" press upon his hounds he 

 should by no means lose his temper, nor allow himself 

 through jealousy or recklessness to be driven from his 

 ground, nor from a want of nerve and decision be led 



• Venerie Roy ale, 1665. 



