17B KILLING A MAY FOX. 



not only evident by the curling of their sterns, and 

 the high spirits with which they will travel homewards, 

 but their freshness on the following morning will be 

 considerably promoted by it. 



How long do you intend hunting? is a question 

 perpetually put to a master of hounds. The best 

 answer to give is, as long as the peas and beans will 

 allow us. From the difference of the nature of the 

 soil, and the grain grown thereon, some countries are 

 better calculated for spring hunting than others; but 

 where the above mentioned description of vegetable 

 produce is the prevailing crop, the sooner the season 

 is closed after the first week in April the better. How 

 frequently do we hear " Ware wheat" dinned into the 

 ears of some unfortunate aspirant to the honours of a 

 " lead," every day we are hunting ; but if Ware beans, 

 peas, vetches, and seeds, were substituted for the above 

 ejaculation, it would be much more to the purpose ; 

 excepting where the land is very wet and tender, the 

 riding over wheat does little or no harm, and of this I 

 have been repeatedly assured by some of the most 

 intelligent and experienced farmers in the country, and 

 who have occupied farms close to fox covers all their 

 lives ; but with all kinds of pulse, young clover, or very 

 rotten and tender meadows, it is a very different thing : 

 if the wet settles afterwards in the clinkers, or marks 

 of the horses' feet, the roots generally perish. The 

 fashion of hunting very late, and the custom of killing 

 a May fox, is now becoming almost obsolete, more 

 probably because the latter part of the season is spent 

 in woodlands and forests, where the modern fox-hunter 

 would be as much out of his element as the emperor 



