OCTOBER. 



CUB-HUNTING. 



By H. H. S. Pearse. 



In counties where great chains of woodland alternate with open 

 downs or wide heathery wastes, broken only by a few cultivated 

 patches, Cub-hunting may begin in the sultry days of August. 

 No crops are there to be injured, and the number of sportsmen 

 who gather in the dewy morning to meet hounds at such places 

 is never great enough to do much damage in any case. Some 

 fashionable hunts are equally favoured in another way, having 

 vast coverts through which hounds may work for hours, day after 

 day, and rattle the cubs about without risk of forcing one out 

 across an acre of corn. 



At Badminton, the Marquis of Worcester begins cubbing the 

 first or second week in August, and finds within the confines 

 of that noble park sport enough to occupy him until the harvest 

 has been gathered, and every puppy in the pack has learned what 

 the duty of a well-bred foxhound is. Even in such a pack — 

 where hereditary instincts of the highest order are transmitted 

 according to scientific rules — and under such tuition the young 

 ones do not all learn their business with equal readiness. There, 

 as elsewhere, one finds the over-impetuous, that will hunt any- 



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