HUNTING DIRECTORY. 167 



Trying back for a Fox. 



" When hounds, running in cover, come into a road, 

 and horses are on before, let tlie huntsman hold them 

 quickly on beyond where the horses have been, trying 

 the opposite side as he goes along. Should the horse- 

 men have been there long enough to have headed back 

 the fox, let them then try back. Condemn me not for 

 suftering hounds to try back, when the fox has been 

 headed back ; I recommend it at no other time. 



*' When your hounds are divided into many parts, you 

 had better go off with the first fox that breaks. The 

 ground will soon get tainted, nor will hounds like a cover 

 where they are often changing. 



" The heading a fox back at first, if the cover be not 

 a large one, is oftentimes of service to hounds, as he will 

 not stop, and cannot go off unseen. When a fox has 

 been hard run, I have known it turn out otherwise ; and 

 hounds that would easily have killed him out of the cover, 

 have left him in it. 



" When a fox has been often headed back on one side 

 of a cover, and a huntsman knows there is not any body 

 on the other side to halloo him, the first fault his hounds 

 come to, let him cast that way, lest the fox should be 

 gone off; and if he is in the cover, he may still recover 

 him. 



''The two principal things which a huntsman has to 

 attend to, are the keeping of his hounds healthy and 

 steady. The first is attained by cleanliness and proper 

 food ; the latter, by putting as seldom as possible, any 

 unsteady ones amongst them. 



" When a fox is lost, the huntsman, on his return home, 

 should examine himself, and endeavour to find in what 



