48 OBSERVATIONS ON FOX-HUNTING 



grass, and long weeds growing between the faggots, 

 will make the whole an almost impenetrable 

 mass ; whilst the long weeds, partly svj^ported 

 by the sticks and faggots, are enabled in a great 

 measure to resist the effects of a winter's frost and 

 snow, or at least if killed, do not fall to the ground, 

 but continue to afford dry lodging for a fox. 



But I trust you will have a country that will 

 require no such contrivances to give you sport, 

 for one good natural covert is worth twenty 

 artificial ones, and more likely to hold stout 

 foxes ; for the old ones are shy fellows, and par- 

 ticularly nice in their choice of habitation ; indeed 

 it even requires judgment to manage your coverts 

 so as to get runs from them. 



If you should hunt a country that may have 

 a large woodland, in which the foxes commonly 

 hang, and seldom go away, it is the best plan 

 to hunt it often and kill a fox in the covert, and 

 be sure to give him to your hounds in the very 

 heart of it. When I first commenced, in rather 

 a woodland country, several of the members of 

 the hunt said to me, it is useless your going to 

 a certain covert, you never will kill a fox or 

 make him break, — " The devil I won't ; I shall 

 meet there every Monday,''' was my answer, " till 

 I diminish the foxes ; " the first day I met hap- 

 pened to be a good scenting day, the last day 



