RUNS WITH MY FATHER'S OLD PACK. 3 



when their fox was fomicl, they were at him like 

 hghtning, until he was forced to fly or die. But 

 foxes in those times were of a different sort to 

 what they are now, since crossed with the French ; 

 and as they generally kennelled in large w^oodlands, 

 they had an advantage over hounds, by l3eing up 

 and away, with a good start. Moreover, it was 

 not the fashion then to clap hounds on to the back 

 of a fox the moment he broke covert. 



I may here mention, to show the stoutness of 

 foxes at that period, two or three runs with my 

 father's old pack ; one from Northwood, near North 

 Wraxall, in Wiltshire, where they found their fox, 

 and killed him in a chalk pit, close to the town of 

 Warminster, more than twenty miles in a straight 

 line from where he was found; having passed 

 through twelve or thirteen parishes. The coverts 

 they traversed in this run were Colerne Park, 

 Box Bottoms, Cottles Wood, Bradford Wood, and 

 the Bood Ashton Woodlands, and the pace at 

 which they went away with their fox so great, that 

 my father, although mounted on a thoroughbred 

 hunter, could not catch them until they came to 

 their first and only check, within one field of 

 Charlewood. 



They had also two runs with another fox, from 

 Haddington Bushes, near Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, 



B 2 



