In fox-hunting, when the fox is supposed to have gone to earth, the fact can only be ascertained in many cases by the excellence of the terrier attending the pack, who has in general strength and speed sufficient to keep him from being far behind. Upon entering the earth, discovery is soon made of the certainty of his retreat, by the terrier's "laying well at him," provided the fox has not turned in the earth: if he has so done, and they are face to face, they are both baying, or keeping each other at bay, till the controversy ends in digging out the fox, and letting in the hounds for their share of the entertainment, with the additional acquisition of blood for the advantage of the pack.
BAY BOLTON
—was bred by Mr. Vernon; foaled in 1777: he was got by Matchem, dam by Regulus, out of an own sister to the Ancaster Starling. He has long been in the possession of his Majesty, and was for many years the favorite stallion at Hampton Court, from whom most of his Majesty's present stud were produced.
BAY MALTON
—was esteemed the first horse of his year in the kingdom, and won more prizes of consequence and value than any horse of his time. He was bred by the then Marquis of Rockingham; was foaled in 1760; got by Sampson, dam by Cade, and grand-dam by Old Traveller. It is believed he never covered as a STALLION: if so, he produced no horses of note.
BAY TREE
—The leaves of which are so useful in fomentations, and the berries in clysters, for horses upon every emergency, particularly remote from towns, that sporting gentlemen in the country should never be without a tree of this description upon their premises.
BEAGLES
,—in early stages of the sporting world, was an appellation of much more definite meaning than in the polish of the present times, and was then used to signify a brace or two of the tanned or pied hounds of small dimensions, with which the country squire or opulent farmer picked and chopped the trail of a hare to her form for a course with his greyhounds. As they were, however, so constantly useful in recovering the hare after the first course, and bringing her to view for a second, it became in a great degree stigmatized by sportsmen in general, and is now considered neither more or less than one mode of poaching under the sanction of legal authority. Many packs of these small beagles (for beagle then implied the smallest kind of hound known) were formerly kept by country gentlemen at a very trifling expence, and with no small share of amusement to their rustic neighbours; for, although those who joined in the chase might be numerous, yet two or three horsemen only were seen in the field, so easy was it to keep up with the hounds (alias beagles) on foot. They were in general so well matched, that they did not exceed eleven inches in height; and ran so well together, they (to speak technically,) "might be covered with a sheet." Though they were slow, they were sure; for if the scent lay well, a hare could seldom escape them; and this, to the object of pursuit, mostly proved a lingering as well as a certain death: for though, in the early parts of the chase, they could never get near enough to press her, they were frequently two or three hours in killing.
In proportion to the increasing spirit of the times, slow hunting declined, and beagles of this kind got in disrepute. The numerous crosses in the breed of both beagles and hounds, according to the wishes and inclinations of those who keep them, have so diversified the variety, that a volume might be produced, in a description of the different sorts and sizes adapted to the soil and surface where they hunt; from the old heavy, deep tongued, dew-lapped southern hound of Manchester, (where the huntsman with his long pole goes on foot,) to the highest crossed harriers of the present day, who kill the stoutest hares in thirty and forty minutes with a speed not much inferior to coursing. Beagles, when the term is now used, implies hounds who hunt hares only, in contra-distinction to those who hunt either STAG or FOX. Harriers have been produced from the crosses between the beagle and the fox hound, for the advantage of speed; but harriers are not, in sporting acceptation, to be considered synonymous with beagles, to whom they are very superior in size. Mr. Daniel, in a recent publication, called "Rural Sports," has given an account of "a cry of beagles, ten or eleven couple, which were always carried to and from the field in a large pair of panniers, slung across a horse: small as they were, they would keep a hare at all her shifts to escape them, and often worry her to death. The catastrophe (says he) attending this pack of hounds is laughable, and perhaps is a larceny unique in its attempt. A small barn was their allotted kennel, the door of which was one night broke open, and every hound with the panniers stolen; nor could the most diligent search discover the least trace of the robbers or their booty."