joo Next to the Ground 



and harking the pack after. The dogs run 

 fast or slow according to scent and ground. 

 If the trail is old — " faded," say the hunters 

 — the pace is slow, as it is also if the trail 

 runs through thickets or over stony, broken 

 ground. 



Scent will not lie on frozen ground, nor 

 when it is dry and windy. The man who 

 wrote : 



" ji southerly wind and a cloudy sky do pro- 

 claim it a hunting morning " 



had assuredly himself " gone a-hunting and 

 catched a fox," as G. Washington, Esq., puts 

 it. It is under a mackerelled dawn sky, with 

 steamy mists rising up in the swales, that 

 dogs find best, follow best, and fill the 

 heavens with their stirring bell-mouthed 

 chorus. 



The full cry breaks out when the pack 

 strikes the warm trail. The cold trail is sim- 

 ply the fox's old track, made as he ran to or 

 fro. The warm trail is his scent as he flees 

 before. It is known otherwise as a scent 

 breast-high, since the dogs need not stoop to 

 find it but pick it up as they run, from tainted 

 herbage and reeking air. Where he has choice 

 of a course, a fox always goes down wind ; 

 thus he can run longer, and faster — thus too 

 the scent is blown away from his pursuers. 



