22 A CURIOSITY IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



and woodland run; and without the accident, I 

 do not beheve my horse could have carried me a 

 mile further. 



This was one of the most severe days' work for 

 hounds and horses that I can now call to mind ; 

 from the fox holding to the thickest coverts in his 

 line, and running over the most hilly part of the 

 comitry, and with all his windings and tmiiings I 

 believe he must have traversed at least thirty miles 

 of ground. 



I once remember killing an entirely black fox, 

 which the hounds ran into and broke up before I 

 could get up with them, or I should have saved 

 his skin, as a curiosity in this country. But the 

 toughest animals in fox shape I have had to deal 

 with were those without brushes. We were at 

 one of these wizards in the Derry Hill woods, 

 hammering him about for hours, and the foot men 

 in the drives (placing themselves at the point he 

 crossed) knocking him also off his legs with 

 squalors, yet he beat us at last in the dark, 

 although I resolved not to go home without his 

 head. What became of him I could not tell ; but 

 as we could not get two couples of hounds away 

 from the covert, I conclude they finished him off 

 at last, for we never found him again. 



'' Tomid our fox in Catcomb Wood (a very thick 



