HUNTING DIRECTORY. 141 



Summer Hunting. 



are fond of their scent, you will do well to enter your 

 young hounds in covers which they frequent. The mar- 

 tern being a small animal, by running the thickest brakes 

 it can find, teaches hounds to run cover, and is therefore 

 of the greatest use. — I do not much approve of hunting 

 them with the old hounds ; they shew but little sport, 

 are continually climbing trees ; and as the cover they 

 run seldom fails to scratch and teai- hounds considerably, 

 I think you might be sorry to see your whole pack dis- 

 figured by it. The agility of this little animal is really 

 wonderful ; and though it falls frequently from a tree, in 

 the midst of a whole pack of hounds, all intent on catch- 

 ing it, there are but few instances, I believe, of a mar- 

 tern's being caught by them in that situation. 



**In summer, hounds might hunt in an evening ; — I 

 know a pack, that, after having killed one fox in the 

 morning with the young hounds, killed another in the 

 evening with the old ones. Scent generally lies well at 

 the close of the day, yet there is a great objection to 

 luniting at that time ; animals are then more easily dis- 

 turbed, and you have a greater variety of scents than at 

 an earlier hour. 



"Having given you all the information I can possibly 

 recollect with regard to my own management of young- 

 hounds, I shall now take notice of that part of your last 

 letter, where I am soi'ry to find that our opinions diftbr. 

 Obedience, you say, is every thing necessary in a hound, 

 and that it is of little consequence by what means it is 

 obtained. I cannot concur altogether in that opinion ; 

 for I think it very necessary, that the hound should at 

 the same time understand you. Obedience, under i)roper 



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