December Days 



But to return to the December weather and 

 the December hunting. Average scenting days 

 week after week have tended to the improve- 

 ment of sport on the whole. There have been 

 days when it has been practically hopeless ; 

 there always have been days of this sort and 

 there always will be ; but, happily, they have 

 been few and far between. Hounds have had 

 no opportunity for forgetting those good lessons 

 which were so carefully taught them in August 

 and September; the giddiest of them is steady 

 by now, and they settle to their work in a busi- 

 ness-like way which is one of the most important 

 factors in the providing of sport. 



Another thing that will have happened by the 

 middle of December, if everything has gone on 

 as it should do, and hounds have not been 

 unduly kept out of coverts on account of the 

 shooting, is that foxes will have got fairly split 

 up and will not be all in a heap as they were 

 earlier in the season. So that any covert which 

 affords dry and warm lying may be looked upon 

 as a nearly certain find, and the small coverts 

 which were not much troubled in the early part 



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