RUNS WITH MY FATHER'S PACK 3 



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 Mad- 

 dington Bushes, near Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, which 

 beat them by going to ground at the Rocks, near Bath — 

 the ground traversed in these two chases not being much 

 less than forty miles ; and when horses and hounds of 

 the present times can beat these performances or equal 

 them, they may then have some grounds for laughing at 

 the bold huntsmen, stout hounds, and stout foxes of the 

 olden time. 



Some flyers may say, " We would have burst your 

 foxes in twenty or forty minutes " ; but, begging your 

 pardon, gentlemen, I maintain you would have done 

 nothing of the kind. Our hounds were then quite as 

 fast as yours now, and much stouter. Our horses equally, 

 if not better bred than yours, and our fox-hunters better 

 horsemen than any you can produce. 



The fox which afforded these two extraordinary chases 

 was never killed by hounds, and Uved to a very great 

 age, being well known from his large size and length. 

 He made his kennel on the top of a high ivy-covered wall, 

 which surrounded the poultry yard, at the back of the 

 house we lived in, where he might be seen during the day, 

 enjoying his otium cum dignitate ; and as he never com- 

 mitted any depredations on the feathered tribes im- 

 mediately under his eye, he was permitted to hold un- 

 disturbed possession of his seat, which he occupied for 

 several years, until, worn out by infirmities, and that 

 plague to the vulpine race, the scab or mange, he was at 

 last found dead one morning, lying on the mat at the hall 

 door ; his selection of this spot to lie down and die in 



