SIR RICHARD SUTTOn's HOUNDS. 181 



as by his running the thickest breaks they were taught 

 to turn quick with a scent, and to run in cover without 

 skirting. Although in the constant habit of climbing, 

 when hunted, he will stand sometimes for above half- 

 an-hour before hounds, with a good scent, without 

 treeing, when the following method for dislodging him 

 is frequently practised. A man climbs part of the way 

 up the tree, and holds under him some damp straw or 

 hay, which is lighted ; immediately upon his perceiving 

 the smoke he darts out of the tree, and so great is his 

 agility, that he will, more frequently than not, escape 

 through the legs of the hounds which stand baying at 

 him, and eagerly watching his descent. About fifteen 

 years since, a remarkable coincidence occurred to the 

 hounds of Sir Richard Sutton, in the Burton country, 

 and which were divided into a dog and bitch pack, 

 each killing, during the season, twenty-one brace and 

 a-half of foxes, and each a marten cat, in a wood near 

 to Lincoln ; one was killed in cub-hunting, the other 

 later in the season. 



If the outstanding woodlands are large, and the foxes 

 plentiful, there can be no harm in protracting this 

 noble amusement, as long as the farmer is not injured 

 by it ; but where the land is totally arable, and where 

 the cubs will be well taken care of, and where they 

 will be useful to enter the young hounds in autumn, I 

 would on no account cut them off in the spring by 

 killing the old vixens. A brace or two of cubs killed 

 in August or September will be of moi e service to the 

 welfare of the pack than twice that nu nber would be, 

 if murdered in April or May. Vixen foxes generally 

 lay up their cubs from the middle to the end of the 



