108 OBSERVATIONS ON FOX-HUNTING 



but ride as fast as he could ; it was all racing, 

 heads up and sterns down ; but when they re- 

 turned home to an inferior scenting country, it 

 was some time before they settled to their usual 

 way of hunting. I knew a pack that went from 

 Hampshire to a good scenting part of Suffolk 

 and Essex, where the cubs were all taken or 

 destroyed, it not being known any one would 

 hunt the country ; notwithstanding these dis- 

 advantages, subsequent to the first of November, 

 they killed 14 brace of foxes successivelj^ and 

 most of them with good runs. I attributed their 

 great sport to a favourable change of country, 

 but they were a gallant little pack, and three 

 parts of them were of Lord Egremont's sort. 

 Hunting too late is attended with great destruc- 

 tion of foxes, and in consequence you often pay 

 dear, the next season, for your spring hunting. 

 About the second week in INIarch I was always 

 in anxious doubt on finding, to know whether 

 it was a vixen fox ; on those occasions there is 

 generally some quick-sighted fellow, who volun- 

 teers his opinion one way or the other (which 

 alarms you the more) ; and I have seen hounds 

 by mistake stopped from a dog fox, and halloo'd 

 to the scent of a vixen. A friend of mine, who 

 was a strict preserver, and took pleasure in seeing 

 other people amused through his means, used to 



