THOUGHTS ON HUNTING. BY OBSERVER. 66 Nimrod was the only man out of a country that could be relied upon for an authentic description of a run. In the first place, his mind inclined to accuracy and detail, and he gave himself more trouble in collecting, contrasting, and arranging information, than most men would think a run-joyous and inspiriting though it is at the time-worth. Added to this, he had an advantage diametrically the reverse of his imitators. Every person was ready to give "Nimrod" information. He was known as Nimrod," the reporter of the fox-hunting world; just as Mr. Ruff (than whom there is not a more correct or right thinking man going) is known as the reporter to the racing world. Now, most people who write accounts of runs don't wish to be known as the authors of them; consequently, they are afraid to ask for information, lest when the paper appears, by laying" that and that" together, people bring it home to them. The full cry of inquiry is raised-"Was So-and-so' out that day?" (There is generally a suspected man in every hunt.) "Oh, then "Soand-so' wrote it ;" and "So-and-so" gets desperately bullied in consequence. Nimrod, on the other hand, was "over the hills and far away," before his accounts appeared. He was a devil of a fellow for digesting his matter. I have often wondered, that a man so fond of physicking horses as he was, did not try a little of something on himself, to see if he could not accelerate the performances of his pen. Nevertheless, he was a good "sworn appraiser" of the "chase." If he erred, it was from over accuracy, and from attaching too much importance to what he saw and did. He wrote quite comfortably; with a spacious note-book and metallic pencil, he dotted down, over his wine in the evening, all he had seen and heard in the morning, assisted, perhaps, by the local genius with whom he was residing, or aided by the huntsman with whom he had been out. I am much inclined to think that the period of "Nimrod's Tours" will, henceforth, be looked upon as the brightest period of foxhunting; not, perhaps, that sport was either better or worse than what it had been before, or may be yet, but simply because it boasted an historian competent to pourtray its features in their brightest colours. It is a singular fact that no one has gained any hold upon the public mind, in the way of a hunting tourist, except Nimrod. It has frequently been attempted, but never, I think, with any success. A great change has taken place in the publicity department of the chase, since the days when the newspaper proprietor brought an G G 99 66 action against a master of hounds for advertising his meets. Fixtures of hounds now form an attractive column in most of the London papers. Many of the local ones keep pet Nimrods of their own. The Brighton papers have always been great hands in the sporting line. They dilate on the meanderings of puss, in the true hare-hunting style, and in the finest sporting language, talking of "captures," escapes," &c., as if the hounds were a pack of police after a felon. Here is a fine account I fell in with the other day. It opens softly, like a concert, and then brews itself up into a perfect hurricane of pace-nine miles in twenty-seven minutes! This, too, with what Mr. Hood used to call the "old harriers!" But let the account speak for itself. It is from the Brighton Gazette, one of the best provincial papers of the day-barring sporting! SIR, The Brighton Harriers met at Patcham, on Monday, it being a fine morning, and the first hunting day we have had for some time in which the hounds could get out. It was a very gratifying sight to those who were there to witness it. The field at first was thinly attended, but soon became numerous; and if we may judge from their cheerful countenances, a good day's sport was expected, which the sequel will prove they had. A little delay took place, owing to Mr. Tanner being engaged at the church on parish business. Meanwhile, a leash of hares was put up, and two of them were soon run into by the hounds. After being joined by Mr. Tanner, whose judgment is at all times respected, and who is always willing to do anything that lies in his power to afford pleasure to the gentlemen of this hunt, we then went away to a patch of furzes belonging to Mr. Tanner, near Patcham, where it was well known that a fox had been for some time domiciled, sporting with the rabits that inhabit these furzes. The hounds had not been in cover more than a minute, before the huntsman whipped out a very fine dog fox. Reynard took away in gallant style down hill, skirting Yew's Bottom, over the hills to Beggar's Bush, thence to Scare Hill Furze, bearing to the right to Pangdean Holt, forward to Clayton Holt, passed through the same, made away across the fields towards Keymer, where he was headed by some men, and run back again to the Holt; but the hounds pressing hard upon him, and being close at his heels, obliged him to leave the Holt again, and take to the open fields. Here he turned to the right, near to the bottom of Ditchling, and at length run into a rabbit burrow, and was taken out alive by Seal, the huntsman. Poor Reynard was then carried in a sack to Sweet Hill, where he was again set at liberty, and the hounds laid on. After a short run, he was killed near Water Hall. From the distance where he was first unkennelled to where he run to earth, is about nine miles, which was run in the short space of twenty-seven minutes, and the pace such that few could keep up with him. This concluded the day's sport, which was one of the best of the season; and the gentlemen retired much gratified, and with weary horses. Brighton, March 25. Yours, &c., NIMROD. Poor reynard, indeed! Sweet Hill had been no fragrance for him-I wish "Nimrod" had told us why they took him there, instead of turning him down where they dug him out. Possibly Seal thought a ride in a sack would refresh him. If so, I have an idea he has a very mistaken notion of what a, fox would consider comfort. But the pace is the thing-twenty miles an hour! equal to a railroad, and this, as I said before, with the "old harriers." What next? I pity a fox killed by harriers. It is an ignominious death. I have the same sort of feeling for reynard that the coachman, who said he would rather be hung off a long stage than die a natural death off a short one, had for his craft. A fox should be tried by his peers-not unkennell'd by harriers, then carried in a sack by Seal--fit name for a sea-side huntsman-shook down, half stupified, half suffocated, knocked on the head most likely with a huntingwhip, and then pulled about by the old Towlers; give me a wildflyer, with twenty couple of two-and-twenty inch fox-hounds, with broad heads, lots of bone, and plenty of music. The parties then are fairly matched-away they go, and the devil take the hindmost! One of the most difficult things in hunting, in my opinion, is discriminating between a fresh fox and a hunted one. There is not one man in a hundred can do it; I question whether any man can do it with any degree of certainty. After a twenty minutes' burst, with faces red, and panting horses worked into a lather, every fox is sure to be proclaimed a "fresh one." At other times, every fox is sure to be the "hunted one." A tired man, a tired horse, a tired hound, a tired hare, are all easy of discrimination; but a fox is a gay deceiver that way. I was prettily taken in with one myself the other day. After a fine hunting run of nearly two hours, during which the fox had been repeatedly viewed, and the hounds had never been so far off the scent as to require casting, they at length came from very slow hunting to barely picking it, and that without speaking. The ground was undulating, and as I kept to the left of the pack, on the brow of a gently swelling hill, I viewed a fox running parallel with the hounds-mind, not running the reverse way, but running parallel the way the hounds were going. A countryman pointed him out to me, and from the line he was taking, the pace he was going, and the strength of his stride as he crossed the upper end of a sound but bare pasture, we never doubted for a moment but he was a fresh fox. I, however, kept my eye upon him, and observed, as he got among the concealing rushes of the lower end of the enclosure, that he seemed to roll, and relax his pace, and kept gradually making for a cow-shed and old buildings at the corner of another field, beyond which he did not seem to go. The hounds presently walked themselves out of scent, and at last threw up, when I told the huntsman what I had seen, expressing my doubts as to its being a fresh fox. He, however, took the hounds in the direction I had last seen him going; and, as I went towards the sheds, I met the fox full in the face, looking as fresh and as clean as could be. Being now sure that he was a fresh one, and the hounds having had a hard day, I did not halloo, but some foot people on the opposite valley did, and brought the hounds, who, I observed, crossed the line, scarcely owning the scent; and when they took it up, they went at only a foot's pace, and carried it on, into a coppice about a couple of hundred yards beyond, when they killed. It was the hunted fox; the efforts he made were, doubtless, from a consciousness of being viewed, and anxiety to hide himself in the rank grass and rushes. The scent of a sinking animal always weakens, to which dispensation of Providence many and many a fox owes his life. A fox is almost the only animal-indeed, I think I may say the only animal in this country one is not sorry for killing. "Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare," wrote Somerville; and it is a sentiment to which many masters of harriers must subscribe, fond though they may be of the sport. The screams of poor puss-so like those of a child- -are sad draw-backs to her death. A fox dies gamely. He generally makes a hound scream, instead of screaming himself. I have more than once thought I have heard an exclamation from bold reynard at the moment, and I have heard masters of hounds say the same, but it was a mere involuntary sort of a spasm, and not the prolonged note of grief. I have seen a fox picked up as stiff as a stuffed one, after a long run, with slightly upturned head and fixed eyes, looking like a piece of beautiful statuary so elegant, so symmetrical. A fox is certainly a wonderful animal; but, save for the purpose of being hunted, I do not know of any use they are of. They are wonderful animals, however. A person unacquainted with their nature and their powers would think twenty couple of great, slashing, high-conditioned hounds, far more than a match for so (in comparison) diminutive an animal; but let them attend hounds a season through-especially in enclosed countries, which most countries now are-and see how often reynard is a match for all his pursuers. The way they escape is sometimes truly magical. A fox hasn't a friend anywhere, and yet how well does he fight his own battles! I said, except for hunting, I did not know any use they are of; and I find the naturalists-generally fond of attributing merit, or usefulness, where they can have nothing to place to the credit of poor reynard. "It will feed on flesh of any kind," they say; "but its favourite food is lambs, rabbits, hares, poultry, and feathered game." Dainty dogs! "When urged by hunger," they add, "it will eat carrots and insects; and those that live near the sea coast will, for want of better food, eat crabs, shrimps, or shell-fish." This last is true enough, as also that it generally gives them the mange for their trouble. The preservation of foxes is a thing but little understood by the majority of sportsmen. This arises in a great measure from the majority of hound followers being young men, who think or care little how a thing is done, provided they have what they want, and from the constant tailing off of those who begin to get an insight into the thing. Look around any hunting field, and how few grey heads are to be seen! and yet it is to these grey heads that we are mostly indebted for the sport; for it needs no conjuror to inform us that hounds, horses, men-all the expensive paraphernalia of the chaseare worse than useless lumber if there are no foxes. The season for the present is over-at least for any but countries where foxes would be destroyed if hounds did not kill them; and I hope gentlemen in their respective districts will give an eye to the sport of the succeeding one by seeing to the quiet of such foxes as remain on their respective estates, particularly that the neighbourhood of the breeding earths be kept strictly protected. Let the fate of Suffolk be a warning to all countries. Seasonal foxes are as necessary to a country's sport as seasonal horses and hounds. In short, it is no use keeping the latter useless they have the former, The past season will be marked by the loss of two of the best sportsmen and gentlemen huntsmen of the day-Mr. Musters and Mr. Foljambe; Mr. Musters having given up his hounds in the middle, Mr. Foljambe at the end of the season. Hounds I fear are 66 rather at a discount, when such a pack as Mr. Foljambe's had to be sold in lots. The close of the season, as usual, has been marked with a good deal of chopping and changing, and Tattersall's hammer has struck many blows. This brings me to think about horses, and the first idea that strikes me is, that there are few greater nuisances than selling a horse one's self. A sale in this respect differs materially from a purchase, most people being fond of "a deal," either as principals or accessories before the fact." Some people are never so happy as when they are negotiating, or ferreting out horses for others. Somehow, they are not so fond of assisting one to sell. I never knew a man, that knew another that wanted a horse of any sort or kind, when I had one to dispose of. Indeed, nobody ever wants anything one has at least ever wants to buy" anything: plenty would borrow, or take it in a gift. There are plenty of fellows, too, that "nibble" at horses-see them out, ask their prices, abuse their paces, inquire if "twenty's" the lowest-look knowing, shake their heads, walk away, but who are never seduced into an offer. Dealers know these fellows by instinct, and won't have anything to say to them; consequently they are thrown with double violence upon the occasional seller. 66 After these torments, a green-horn purchaser is the most annoying; they do ask such questions, talk such nonsense, and expect so much for their twenty pounds. Then, if the horse does not prove ، all their fancies painted him," they look upon you as a cheat and imposter all the rest of their lines; not only they, but all the relations and friends of this life join chorus. "Oh that Mr. Martingal, he's a norrid cheat! He cheated my cousin, Simon Figsby, in a horse." Then the old women who are always ready to take hold of an illnatured story at either end, never hear poor Martingal's name mentioned without exclaiming, “ Oh lor ! that's the man that cheats in horses;" while if he is a "worth catching" sort of man, the young ones are equally vehement, in hopes of preventing each other from "entering" for him. And all this perhaps, because Figsby girthed the horse so tight that the poor animal kicked him over his head as a hint to slacken them. Between the gabber of one of these articles, the brandy and watering luck money of the small dealer, and the risk of getting a gross of green spectacles by sending a servant to a country fair, a man is quite puzzled what to do with a screw, and longs for the immunity of the auctioneer's hammering eloquence. Tattersall's the boy for effecting an easy transfer. A man has no more trouble, and knows no more what becomes of his horse, than he does what becomes of his "consols," after he signs a power of attorney for their transfer. "It's really a blessing" to be sure to be able to get rid of a horse without burthening one's conscience with lies or equivocations, or living in dread, as long as the horse lasts, that Figsby will think he has been done. I once sold a horse to a member of the Figsby tribe, and after hattering him about Brighton Downs for a week, he insisted |