OBSERVATIONS ON FOX-HUNTING 111 



but if you meet at the furthest end of your 

 hunt up wind, you may lose half the morning in 

 trotting down wind to begin drawing ; therefore, 

 when I have been obliged to draw down wind, 

 it was not from choice, but from necessity. 



The number of days you intend to hunt must 

 be regulated according to your establislmient, the 

 extent of your country, and the stock of foxes 

 you have in it. I should say four days a week, 

 for a pack of fifty couples, will keep your hounds 

 and horses in regular work. You had better 

 divide them into two separate packs ; for hounds 

 that are hunted together will give less trouble, 

 be more handy, and not so jealous of each other. 

 It is decidedly a bad plan to take out too many 

 hounds, and never by any means take out one 

 that is not quite fit and in condition. If you 

 can muster twenty or one-and-twenty couples in 

 each pack, all effective, it is as many as you 

 ever ought to take into the field. On no occasion 

 rob either pack to make up the nvuuber of the 

 other ; even sixteen couples, that know each 

 other, will do the thing better by themselves, and, 

 if well matched, will carry a good head across 

 a country, and not appear contemptible either. 

 How disgusting it is to see a large pack out, and 

 only a few couples at head ! In a run across 

 the ojjen nothing has a more unsightly appear- 



