Beckford says: “You will find nothing so essential to your sport as that your hounds should run well together; nor can this end be better attained than by confining yourself, as near as you can, to those of the same sort, viz. size and shape. A great excellence in a pack of hounds is the head they carry; and that pack be said to go the fastest that can run 10 miles with the fewest checks. As a good level pack at a check should spread like a rocket, what can be finer than a pack like the horses of the sun, ‘all abreast’?”
I hope you will excuse me, Mr. Editor, for trespassing on your valuable space at such a length, but these are only suggestions on my part, and I hope the matter will be thoroughly sifted and discussed; and let us hope that some authority on the subject will put forth his views. Let your hounds be
“Facies non omnibus una,
Nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sonorum.”
APPENDIX IV.
LETTER FROM A MASTER OF HOUNDS OF FORTY YEARS’ EXPERIENCE.
Behaviour and Control of Field.
When a Master is hunting his own hounds it is very advisable to have either a joint Master, or a field Master, whose business it is to keep the field well away from huntsman and hounds when they come to a check. The field should remember that to press hounds at a check is most disastrous to sport, and they should keep well away and wait till hounds hit off the line, and certainly not follow the huntsman about when he is making a cast. In hare hunting this is most essential, as a hare will often run back on its own line or squat; if the field is walking about on the line it is impossible for hounds to pick it up. The huntsman should know to a few yards where the hounds last had the line, and the moment that he says “Hold hard” everyone should stop and stand perfectly still and not talk: the least thing will get hounds’ heads up, and once up it takes time to get them down again. Another thing, never halloo a hare; if any one sees a hare, hold up his cap at the place where he has seen the hare; if the huntsman does not see him, go to the huntsman and tell him, 1st where the hare was seen, 2nd how long it had been gone, 3rd which direction it was going in; a minute lost in giving correct information will often save many minutes in getting hounds properly on the line.