X OBSERVATIONS ON FOX-HUNTING 



their preparation had been fed entirely on legs of mutton, 

 occupies a page in the annals of hound-breeding too well 

 known to require rewriting in detail, but it is one that may 

 surely be cited to refute the proposition that our ancestors 

 of that generation were unduly addicted to linchunting. 

 It may be fairly argued that the pioneers of the latter part 

 of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries 

 in attempting to weave elegance, grace, and sjonmetry into 

 a pattern of just enough calibre to be neither bulky nor 

 insignificant, had hit upon the type that, in addition to being 

 the most pleasing to the eye, was also the most serviceable 

 for all time and all countries. 



Colonel Cook's insistence on three postulates with regard 

 to the successful hunting of the Fox, places him among 

 the critics of the first class. No writer on Foxhunting has 

 ever presented them in so small a space mth such concise 

 and unerring precision ; they deserve special attention. Wc 

 will cite them in Colonel Cook's own order ; they are indeed 

 paramount in importance ; they depend upon each other ; 

 though perhaps the last of the three is the most important 

 of all : 



1. " Blood is so necessary to a pack of Foxhomids, that 

 if you are long without it, you cannot expect sport ; manj' 

 say that the art of Foxhunting is keeping your pack in blood. 

 All hounds are liable to get out of it. . . ." 



How true ! The very worst habit that a pack of Foxhounds 

 can contract is the habit of not killing their Foxes. " Hounds," 

 says Colonel Cook, " will not work through difTiculties, nor 

 will they exert themselves in that killing sort of manner when 

 they are out of blood." But there are ways and means of 

 keeping a pack in blood. Digging out a Fox is sometimes 

 legitimate. But this consideration brings us to the second 

 maxim : 



2. " Whatever you do, never turn out a bagman ; it is 

 injurious to your hounds ; makes them wild and unsteady ; 

 besides, nothing is more desjMcable, or held in greater contempt 



