HUNTING TERMS
Billet.—The excrement of a fox.
Burst.—The first part of a run.
Burning scent.—When hounds go so fast, from the goodness of the scent, they have no breath to spare, and run almost mute.
Breast high.—When hounds do not stoop their heads, but go a racing pace.
Capping.—To wave your cap to bring on the hounds. Also to subscribe for the huntsman, by dropping into a cap after a good run with fox-hounds. At watering places, before a run with harriers.
Carry a good head.—When hounds run well together, owing to the scent being good, and spreading so wide that the whole pack can feel it. But it usually happens that the scent is good only on the line for one hound to get it, so that the rest follow him; hence the necessity of keeping your eyes on the leading hounds, if you wish to be forward.
Challenge.—When drawing a fox, the first hound that gives tongue, “challenges.”
Changed.—When the pack changed from the hunted fox to a fresh one.
Check.—When hounds stop for want of scent in running, or over-run it.
Chopped a fox.—When a fox is killed in cover without running.
Crash.—When in cover, every hound seems giving tongue at the same moment: that is a crash of hounds.
Cub.—Until November, a young fox is a cub.
Drawing.—The act of hunting to find a fox in a cover, or covert, as some term it.
Drag.—The scent left by the footsteps of the fox on his way from his rural rambles to his earth, or kennel. Our forefathers rose early; and instead of drawing, hunted the fox by “dragging” up to him.
Dwelling.—When hounds do not come up to the huntsman’s halloo till moved by the whipper-in, they are said to dwell.
Drafted.—Hounds drawn from the pack to be disposed of, or hung, are drafted.
“Earths are drawn.”—When a vixen fox has drawn out fresh earth, it is a proof she intends to lay up her cubs there.
Eye to hounds.—A man has a good eye to hounds who turns his horse’s head with the leading hounds.
Flighty.—A hound that is not a steady hunter.
Feeling a scent.—You say, if scent is bad, “The hounds could scarcely feel the scent.”
Foil.—When a fox runs the ground over which he has been before, he is running his foil.
Headed.—When a fox is going away, and is met and driven back to cover. Jealous riders, anxious for a start, are very apt to head the fox. It is one of the greatest crimes in the hunting-field.
Heel.—When hounds get on the scent of a fox, and run it back the way he came, they are said to be running heel.
Hold hard.—A cry that speaks for itself, which every one who wishes for sport will at once attend to when uttered by the huntsman.
Holding scent.—When the scent is just good enough for hounds to hunt a fox a fair pace, but not enough to press him.
Kennel.—Where a fox lays all day in cover.
Line holders.—Hounds which will not go a yard beyond the scent.
Left-handed.—A hunting pun on hounds that are not always right.
Lifting.—When a huntsman carries the pack forward from an indifferent, or no scent, to a place the fox is hoped to have more recently passed, or to a view halloo. It is an expedient found needful where the field is large, and unruly, and impatient, oftener than good sportsmen approve.[202-*]
Laid up.—When a vixen fox has had cubs she is said to have laid up.
Metal.—When hounds fly for a short distance on a wrong scent, or without one, it is said to be “all metal.”
Moving scent.—When hounds get on a scent that is fresher than a drag, it is called a moving scent; that is, the scent of a fox which has been disturbed by travelling.
Mobbing a fox.—Is when foot passengers, or foolish jealous horsemen so surround a cover, that the fox is driven into the teeth of the hounds, instead of being allowed to break away and show sport.
Mute.—When the pace is great hounds are mute, they have no breath to spare; but a hound that is always mute is as useless as a rich epicure who has capital dinners and eats them alone. Hounds that do not help each other are worthless.
Noisy.—To throw the tongue without scent is an opposite and equal fault to muteness.
Open.—When a hound throws his tongue, or gives tongue, he is said to open.
Owning a scent.—When hounds throw their tongues on the scent.
Pad.—The foot of a fox.
Riot.—When the hounds hunt anything beside fox, the word is “Ware Riot.”
Skirter.—A hound which is wide of the pack, or a man riding wide of the hounds, is called a skirter.
Stroke of a fox.—Is when hounds are drawing. It is evident, from their manner, that they feel the scent of a fox, slashing their stern significantly, although they do not speak to it.
Sinking.—A fox nearly beaten is said to be sinking.
Sinking the wind.—Is going down wind, usually done by knowing sportsmen to catch the cry of the hounds.
Stained.—When the scent is lost by cattle or sheep having passed over the line.
Stooping.—Hounds stoop to the scent.
Slack.—Indifferent. A succession of bad days, or a slack huntsman, will make hounds slack.
Streaming.—An expressive word applied to hounds in full cry, or breast high and mute, “streaming away.”
Speaks.—When a hound throws his tongue he is said to speak; and one word from a sure hound makes the presence of a fox certain.
Throw up.—When hounds lose the scent they “throw up their heads.” A good sportsman always takes note of the exact spot and cause, if he can, to tell the huntsman.
Tailing.—The reverse of streaming. The result of bad scent, tired hounds, or an uneven pack.
Throw off.—After reaching the “meet,” at the master’s word the pack is “thrown into cover,” hence “throw off.”
There are many other terms in common use too plain to need explanation, and there are a good many slang phrases to be found in newspaper descriptions of runs, which are both vulgar and unnecessary. One of the finest descriptions of a fox-hunt ever written is to be found in the account of Jorrocks’ day with the “Old Customer,” disfigured, unfortunately, by an overload of impossible cockneyisms, put in the mouth of the impossible grocer. Another capitally-told story of a fox-hunt is to be found in Whyte Melville’s “Kate Coventry.” But the Rev. Charles Kingsley has, in his opening chapter of “Yeast,” and his papers in Fraser on North Devon, shown that if he chose he could throw all writers on hunting into the shade. Would that he would give us some hunting-songs, for he is a true poet, as well as a true sportsman!
Another clergyman, under the pseudonym of “Uncle Scribble,” contributed to the pages of the Sporting Magazine an admirable series of photographs—to adopt a modern word—of hunting and hunting men, as remarkable for dry wit and common sense, as a thorough knowledge of sport. But “Uncle Scribble,” as the head of a most successful Boarding School, writes no more.
I may perhaps be pardoned for concluding my hints on hunting, by re-quoting from Household Words an “Apology for Fox-hunting,” which, at the time I wrote it, received the approbation, by quotation, of almost every sporting journal in the country. It will be seen that it contains a sentence very similar to one to be found in Mr. Rarey’s “Horse Training”—“A bad-tempered man cannot be a good horseman.”