it by the superiority of their noses in hunting an indifferent scent." "Do they not tire towards the end of a hard day?" said I. "They do not," he replied. Of course I had nothing more to say-further than that my experience of pointers leads me to the knowledge of the fact, that their noses are better when they do not eat flesh, and they can do all common work without it, although they require it on the moors. In the case of a pack of fox-hounds, it is quite une autre chose : I am all for flesh.

The mention of the Bell Inn reminds me that I saw the beautiful, the superb piece of plate, given by the gentlemen who hunt with the Quorn hounds, to Mr. Errington, on his retiring from the management of them. A more gratifying compliment could not have been paid to any man placed in a similar situation; and the style in which the artist has executed the ideas of the designer shews that he is worthy of the munificent sum viz. 300 guineas which the bounty of the contributors enabled him to receive for the fine display of his art.

(To be continued.)

ON THE NATURE OF THE FOXHOUND, AND ON
HUNTING GENERALLY.

BY THE HON. GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY, M. P.

(Continued from page 283.)

So disgusted and scared have I known old, steady, and well-entered hounds, by harsh and ignorant conduct at the hands of new masters, that they have fled from the kennel, run wild in the woods, and hidden themselves at the sight of a red-coat, as if they had been animals with whose destruction man was prone to amuse himself. So frightened have they been by such harsh and unusual conduct, that the foundation of their generous nature has been changed; and though the pack has been brought in sight of them, even their gregarious inclination has been eradicated, and they have refused to join their old associates, either when at peaceful exercise or when running a fox in the very wood in which the individual hound had sought so strange a shelter. The particular case to which I am at the present moment alluding was in the instance of a hound called Sentinel, bred at Berkeley Castle, and entered and used at fox for five seasons, in Bedfordshire, by me. He was of an odd, suspicious, and nervous temper; but from having had his peculiarities observed and humoured, a more honest, steady, gallant, and useful hound, never dragged up to a fox. In his five years' service with me, he never experienced a harsh word or a blow, as I knew that the one or the other would tend very much to spoil him in the kennel to which he went when I sold my hounds, he met with plenty of each, and ran away accordingly. Being in the vicinity of his refuge, I was very anxious to try if Sentinel had forgotten me, or if he would remember the yellow plush livery; and could I have

been sure of a meeting with him, I would have appeared dressed as in his happier hours: but it was determined that he should never see me but under adverse circumstances. One day, in returning from hunting, I saw him in the Bigstock Forest, gnawing the stale carcass of a dead fawn; the sight of my red coat sent him off immediately, long before his ear could catch the tone of my voice. At another time I was pheasant shooting in the same forest, in company with the keeper from Farming Woods, when, in beating to a corner of the forest, a fox, a large black cat, and then Sentinel, crossed the ride almost at the same moment, and not twenty yards from each other. Unfortunately my gun was to my shoulder and the cat killed before I saw Sentinel, who appeared to be flying from the spaniels in the same terror as the fox and cat, and the report of my gun added to his alarm: however, as he crossed the ride I called him by name, as I used to do, and the startled, surprised, and half-recognising glance which he bestowed upon me from his dark countenance and bright eyes, was very peculiar. He even paused an instant, as if unexpectedly recalled to long-lost associations; but the bustling approach of the spaniels, and cry of the keeper, alarmed him again, when disappearing in the thick cover, I never, from that time, set eyes on the poor old hound again.

Perhaps no man had to contend with greater disadvantages in his first season of keeping foxhounds than I had; for having hunted stag for a number of years, I went at once from the one to the other, and commenced my first year of fox with about eighteen couples of hounds, that had been entered at Red Deer; and ten or eleven couples of old, worn-out, or vicious and faulty animals, whose efforts tended to any thing rather than the death of the creature they pursued. To so small a body of old, uncertain hounds, I had to add upwards of forty couples of young; and having draughted a great many, with about this complement I commenced my season. Some of the old draughts from foxhound kennels would not draw; others would draw and find a fox: but then, after they had found him, they would so hang and cry on the line, that on the first check they would bring the whole body of serviceable hounds back to them. In this state of things I soon found that it would be more expedient to get rid of all old and faulty impediments, and to find the fox myself, leaving it to my staghounds, who were all foxhound bred, to hold to the scent when placed upon it, and to teach the willing young hounds their duty. It will be right to observe, that these staghounds were as steady from hare and fallow-deer as it was possible to make them without the advantages to that end, of having to draw through riot of this nature, while searching for the animal which they were to hunt. In my endeavours to get my hounds to a cub, I believe I have forced my horse through covers that never were ridden through before; and once in particular, on a wet morning, I rode up a cub in the middle of Harrold Dungey Wood, and laid every hound at his brush. They ran this cub hard for above an hour, when the fox laid down on his foiled ground, and the pack, not being used to work by themselves in woodlands, soon after they were at fault came out into the field to obtain assistance at my hands. I lost that fox, and many a one besides, after they were beaten, simply for the reason that my hounds were unused to the shifts of the animal they were set to catch, and had not learned, by former experience, to have the neces

sary confidence in their own sagacity. Although it was, from these adverse circumstances, out of my power to shew much sport the first season, yet on the second I did very well: the third, fourth, and fifth seasons, our sport could not be surpassed; and we averaged from thirty-five to thirty-six brace and a half of foxes each year. In the last season I hunted that country, assisted only by my brother, Mr. Moreton Berkeley, and our whipper-in, the late Thomas Skinner, I found seventeen foxes in the neutral country of Yardley Chase (which, in extent of wood, amounts to, and, indeed, joins a forest), and killed thirteen of them at the end of runs, in nearly every case forcing them away from the woodlands in which they were found.

In again adverting to the mind of a foxhound, I must not pass over old Voucher, a dog given to me by Colonel George Wyndham. Nothing would ever induce old Voucher to draw for a fox. The instant the pack were in cover, he stuck his head between the hocks of my horse, and waited patiently till the chase began. Voucher made himself acquainted with the liars in the pack sooner than I did; and when I heard a hound speaking in cover, I used to look to the old hound to see the effect the challenge had on him. Some tongues he would treat at once with contempt, others seemed to puzzle him as to whether they were or were not worthy of credit, while some there were that would call him instantly to work; and it was almost always safe to cheer if Voucher dashed into the cover. There is no finer study for the naturalist than is to be found in the nature and resources of the foxhound, collectively and individually. Their tempers and dispositions vary as much as those in men; with this exception, too, that in the human race it is difficult to meet with gratitude, while in the hound kindness is ever repaid by never-failing fidelity and affection. The hound is an open-hearted, generous animal, indefatigable in exertion, and beautifully obedient to those who tend him with care and assist him in his pursuits. His duty often lies where no eye can mark his actions, and where his huntsman can neither check his faults nor cheer his virtues to the honesty, generosity, and mysterious properties of his nature, therefore, man is fain to trust; and consequently he should assiduously cherish, and by every means enlarge, those points of character which are far beyond his power to bestow, but which may be effectually marred by ignorance and brutality. Hounds should serve their huntsman from goodwill, affection, and natural inclination, and not through fear of his displeasure. I once saw a huntsman, having killed a fox in cub-hunting time, order his whippers-in to flog up his over-heated, panting, and thirsty hounds, from the places where they had thrown themselves in the shade, and drive them to his holloa as he held the fox above his head; and this because, during the morning's work, the hounds had been slow to the holloa and slack in running at their fox. I remarked at the moment to the noble lord, the master of this man, that all the whipping in the world would not force an appetite into a weary hound, or make him worry and break up a fox; neither would it induce him at other times, when he knew he was beyond the reach of the lash, to hasten to the horn, or fly from the security of the thicket. I have said elsewhere, that a hound should regard his attendants in the field as jovial aids in a merry sport, and not as heavy

taskmasters, and should only fly from a whipper-in when caught in evident delinquency.

It is often difficult to steer a correct course between two evils without going too near the one or the other, and thus it is that some masters of hounds carry their horror of the whip to an excess which is highly reprehensible, not permitting the exercise of the lash under any circumstances whatever. Against the exclusion of punishment altogether I inveigh as much as I do against ignorant and unnecessary severity. If an old hound, or a young one, who has learned right from wrong, leaves the cry to the fox, and breaks away for selfish amusement at a hare, were he caught in the fact, I would recommend the application of the full swing of the heavy thong. If, when the pack is called from cover, a hound is aware of the summons, and yet hangs back and employs himself with riot, I would advise a dismounted whipper-in to catch him in the bushes, and having there administered several blows, to drive him forth with every appearance of indignation; then, the moment he reaches his huntsman, that great dispenser of canine happiness should obviously pity the weals on his back, and make much of him, rendering it as plain as possible that in future the hound has but to do his duty, and fly to him, to render him safe from blows or objurgation.

When first I commenced fox-hunting in Bedfordshire, on running a fox to ground, though their endeavours impeded the men with spades, I used to let the hounds think that they assisted in digging him out; nor would I allow the people at work to push a hound rudely out of the way, however much his scratching at the holes might interfere with the breaking up of the drain. In cub-hunting, or at the end of a sufficient day, when I had no one's pleasure to think of but my own, I have encouraged my hounds to tear up a drain, assisting them a little with the spade, till they have, as it were by their own exertions, drawn and killed their fox; and this I found to be of the utmost service in bringing young hounds on. Once in particular I remember a young bitch who had not entered, and who was out one day when we ran a fox from the Harrold Woods to a drain. She was very fond of me, and always seemed to watch every look, and turn of my hand; and while I was standing with one foot in the entrance of the drain to keep the hounds from wedging themselves in, she came up to me to play. During the time that we were digging the fox out, I pretended to scratch eagerly at different places myself; and while I did so, half in play, she would stand on her hind legs and scratch my shoulders, push her nose against my ear, and look curiously into my face, and sometimes assist me in working at the holes. She was in the midst of the pack when they drew their fox, and though alarmed by the rush and consequent struggle on his being taken from them and broken up, from that day she commenced hunting, and became both useful and industrious. By thus permitting my hounds to indulge in their natural propensities, and by letting them discover the why and wherefore of the occurrences of the day, they entered mentally as well as bodily into the pleasures of the chase, and became rationally steady creatures instead of mere slaves to superficial rule. In waiting with them for the arrival of spades to open a drain, on observing the approach of

labourers with the necessary instruments they have started away from me the length of a field to meet them, flinging their tongues in individual instances, in a joyful tone of recognition, and dancing up to, and even kissing the handles of the spades, as much as to say, "These are the aids we want." This done, they would race back again to me and to the drain, as if inviting the bearer of the spade to make more haste in his assistance. In doing this there was no riot! the merry tongues which were flung blithely in the air did not babble, they were simple and sensible gratulations to those who were bringing aid; and what a sin it would have been to have regarded their natural proceeding as one of insubordination, unsteadiness, and riot, and to have suffered the whipper-in rudely to have checked it!

A hound should have his head and heart in his work, and be as much alive to the varying incidents of the chase as his master. I have seen a sagacious hound, when working out an indifferent scent, be carried away by the eagerness of the pack around him, and made to overrun the scent. Finding out his mistake, and becoming aware of the over-zeal of his fellows, I have observed him return alone to that exact spot where he was perfectly certain that the scent had last served him. Now, were a thoughtful hound to do this in the presence of many ignorant huntsmen, the first thing that they, or their whippers-in, would do, would be to cry, 66 ware heel," and thus prove themselves totally unable to comprehend the beautiful intricacies of the real art of "venerie."

Some masters of hounds have a horror of lifting the pack when at fault; others are apt to take them in hand before it is necessary; and thus there is scarce one huntsman in fifty who knows when to be still, or when to be in action. Some tardy and slow-thinking men have an unaccountable horror of a view-holloa; others seem to have their ears open to nothing else: a clever huntsman should steer clear of each overwhelming fault. In the first place, never lay hold of your hounds, or cast them, or attempt to do any thing for them till they have done all for themselves. By this I do not mean to say, that if a fox is viewed across fallow to grass grounds beyond it, the pack should not be taken in hand the first convenient opportunity, and lifted to the better ground; I merely make the remark as applicable to circumstances when no certainty of the line of the fox exists, and when it would be scarcely safe or advisable to infringe on the better instinct of nature. In proof of the service of a view-holloa, I will once more revert to Yardley Chase. Having found a fox in the presence of a large field of people, both from my own country as well as from Northamptonshire, we took him away, chiefly by the rides, into the Duke of Grafton's country. If I remember rightly, we had an hour and twenty minutes over the open, without a check of any consequence; and then the fox tried to regain the woodlands, running the foiled ground every inch of the way. This brought us to cold hunting; till at last, I could only hit the fox here and there by guess-work; or, as they used to say of old Tom Oldaker, I was endeavouring "to guess my fox to death." On reaching Yardley Chase, I found that instead of entering fresh quarters of the cover, the fox had still kept to the foiled rides, and, therefore, I could not touch him any where. Finding that we were beaten unless by some most favourable circumstance, I