The country, and the method of hunting in many of the American states, is on similar lines to that on the fells, so the imported hounds find themselves more or less “at home.” Col. Roger D. Williams, M.F.H. (Iroquois Hunt Club, Kentucky), in his book “Horse and Hound,” has this to say, when comparing sport in England and the States:
“The problem that confronts the American hound is an altogether different proposition. Our coverts and forests are extremely large, the foxes remaining wild and timid, and seldom pass twenty-four hours without a run of from four to eight hours, the hounds frequently running them by themselves without hunters (unless the packs are large they are not kennelled and generally run at large).
“One or two ambitious hounds will alone get up a fox at dusk, and as they circle through the neighbourhood all the hounds in hearing ‘hark’ to them until ten or a dozen couples are hustling him in full cry. Does the fox go to earth? Not he, earth stoppers are unnecessary; he will lead them a merry chase as long as he can drag one foot behind the other, or until daylight warns him he had better ‘seek the seclusion that his burrow grants.’ I have, upon more than one occasion in the ‘Blue Grass Country,’ heard two and three different packs in the middle of the night, each one after a different fox, making music that would cause the blood to go galloping through one’s veins like a racehorse.
“Thus at any time his ‘foxship’ is trained to the minute.
“The character of the country hunted over is frequently dry and rocky, many large ploughed and cultivated fields, with woodlands strewn with dry, parched leaves. It is not uncommon for hounds to hunt half a day before a trail is struck; it may then be an old, overnight trail that will require hours of persevering work before the fox is afoot.
“I am prepared to state that a hound that would be considered a wonder in the grass countries of England, if cast with a pack in America in our Southern States, where he would be expected to take a trail many hours old, in a dry, barren, country, puzzle it out for several hours, make a jump (unkennel), and then run it from ten to twenty hours—a feat I have seen performed scores of times by American hounds—would find himself hopelessly out of a job.”
That the imported fell hounds have found favour in America is corroborated by two “At stud” advertisements in a copy of the Red Ranger—an American publication devoted solely to foxhunting—which I have before me as I write.
The date is February, 1913, and the “ads.” are as follows:—
“At stud. ‘Ringwood,’ a full-blooded Eskdale foxhound, bred by William Porter. A wide and rapid hunter, an excellent trailer, fast and dead game. Ship bitches to Woodland, Ga. All communications to A. G. Gordon, Junr., Talbotton, Ga. Stud fee, $35. Cash.”