The Commencement of the Season.
During the beginning of autumn, the hounds should be daily exercised when the weather will permit. They should often be called over in the kennel to habituate them to their names, and walked out among the sheep and deer, in order that they may he accustomed perfectly to disregard them.
A few stout hounds being added to the young ones, some young foxes may occasionally be turned out. If they hunt improper game, they must be sternly checked. Implicit obedience is required until they have been sufficiently taught as to the game which they are to pursue. No obstinate deviation from it must ever be pardoned. The hounds should be, as much as possible, taken out into the country which they are afterwards to hunt, and some young foxes are probably turned out for them to pursue. At length they are suffered to hunt their game in thorough earnest, and to taste of its blood.
this they are sent to more distant covers, and more old hounds are added, and so they continue until they are taken into the pack, which usually happens in September. The young hounds continue to be added, two or three couple at a time, until all have hunted. They are then divided into two packs, to be taken out alternate days. Properly speaking, the sport cannot be said to begin until October, but the two preceding months are important and busy ones.
"It would appear, then," says Nimrod, "that the breeding of a pack of fox-hounds, bordering on perfection, is a task of no ordinary difficulty. The best proof of it is to be found in the few sportsmen that have succeeded in it. Not only is every good quality obtained if possible, but every imperfection or fault is avoided. The highest virtue in a fox-hound is his being true to the line his game has gone, and a stout runner at the end of the chase. He must also be a patient hunter when there is a cold scent and the pack is at fault."
While there is no country in the world that can produce a breed of horses to equal the English thorough-bred in his present improved state, there are no dogs like the English fox-hound for speed, scent, and continuance. It would seem as if there were something in the climate favourable and necessary to the perfection of the hound. Packs of them have been sent to other countries, neighbouring and remote; but they have usually become more or less valueless.
regards the employment of the voice and the horn when out with hounds, too much caution cannot be used. A hound should never be cheered unless we are perfectly convinced that he is right, nor rated unless we are sure that he is wrong. When we are not sure of what is going on we should sit still and be silent. A few moments will possibly put us in possession of all that we wish to know.
The horn should only be used on particular occasions, and a huntsman should speak by his horn as much as by his voice. Particular notes should mean certain things, and the hounds and the field should understand the language. We have heard some persons blowing the horn all the day long, and the hounds have become so careless as to render it of no use. When a hound first speaks in cover to a fox, you may, if you think it necessary, use
one single
and prolonged note to get the pack together. The same note will do at any time to call up a lost or loitering hound; but, when the fox breaks cover, then let your horn be marked in its notes: let it sound as if you said through it, "Gone away! gone away! gone away! away! away! away!" dwelling with full emphasis on the last syllable. Every hound will fly from the cover the moment he hears this, and the sportsmen and the field will know that the fox is away.
It is the perfection of the horse, and the perfection of the hound, and the disregard of trifling expense, that has given to Englishmen a partiality for field-sports, unequalled in any other country. Mr. Ware's pack of fox-hounds cost 2 000 guineas, and the late Lord Middleton gave the same to Mr. Osbaldeston for ten couples of his hounds.
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