164 HUNTING DIRECTORY. 



Hounds Casting themselves. 



the scent gets worse, the cast should be slower, and be 

 more cautiously made. This is an essential part of 

 hunting, and which, I am sorry to say, few huntsmen 

 attend to. I wish they would remember the following 

 rules, viz. that with a good scent, their cast should be 

 quick ; with a bad scent, slow ; and that, when the 

 hounds are picking along a cold scent, they are not to 

 cast them at all. 



"When hounds are at fault, and staring about, trust- 

 ing solely to their eyes, and to their ears, the making a 

 cast with them, I apprehend, wovdd be to little purpose. 

 The likeliest place for them to find a scent, is where 

 they left it ; and when the fault is evidently in the dog, 

 a forward cast is least likely to recover the scent. 



" When hounds are making a good and regular cast, 

 trying for the scent as they go, suffer not your huntsman 

 to say a word to them : it cannot do any good, and pro- 

 bably may make them go over the scent. 



"When hounds come to a check, a huntsman should 

 observe the tail hounds : they are the least likely to 

 overrun the scent, and he may see by them how far they 

 brought it. In most packs there are some hounds that 

 will shew the point of the fox ; and, if attended to, will 

 direct his cast : when such hounds follow unwillingly, he 

 may be certain the rest of the pack are running without 

 the scent. 



"When he casts his hounds, let him not cast wide, 

 without reason ; for of course it will take more time. 

 Huntsmen, in general, keep too forward in their casts ; 

 or, as a sailor would say, keep too long on one tacJc. 

 They should endeavour to hit off the scent by crossing 



