HO HUNTING DIRECTORY. 



Importance of First Impressions. 



see deer, but let them draw covers where deer are : for 

 you must not be surprised, if, after they are so far steady, 

 as not to run them in view, they should challenge on the 

 scent of them. Unless you take this method with your 

 young hounds, before you put them into the pack, you 

 will run a great risk of corrupting such as are steady, 

 and will lose the pleasure of hunting with steady hounds. 

 I have already said, that after my young hounds are taken 

 into the pack, I still take out but very few at a time, 

 when I hunt among deer. I also change them when I 

 take out others ; for the steadiness they may have ac- 

 quired could be but little depended on, were they to 

 meet with any encouragement to be riotous. 



" I confess I think first impressions of more conse- 

 quence than they are in general thought to be : I not 

 only enter my young hounds to vermin on that account, 

 but I even use them, as early as I can, to the strongest 

 covers and thickest brakes, and I seldom find they are 

 ever shy of them afterwards. A friend of mine has as- 

 sured me, that he once entered a spaniel to snipes, and 

 the dog ever after was partial to them, preferring them 

 to every other bird. 



^'Ifyouhavemarterns* within your reach, as all hounds 



* Beckford seems, in some degree, to contradict himself; in the pre- 

 ceding paragraph, the instance of the spaniel and snipes seems at variance 

 with the advice which immediately follows for entering young hounds at 

 the martern. In his sixth letter he also observes ; — "You had better enter 

 them at their own game — it will save you much trouble afterwards. Many 

 (logs, I believe, like that scent best they were first blooded to; but be that 

 as it may, it is certainly most reasonable to use them to that which it is in- 

 tended they should hunt.'' — He also severely reprobates the practice of en- 

 tering young hounds at hare, as will be seen by the following pages. 



