THE LIFE OF A FOX. 77

on to a fresh fox, which the whipper-in Jones
had viewed away on the farther side of Loalland
Wood, at a time when the hounds were hunting
my scent through it, I having gone through and
away from it long before he got there. On looking
back I witnessed, to my regret, Mr. Smith’s dis-
pleasure at the system, which from that time
he insisted should not be continued. However
I was, four days afterwards, lying in a small
wood at Kelmarsh, when the hounds pursued
a fox in full cry, and came straight towards
where I lay. Just before they arrived, I heard
the following words addressed by Mr. Smith
to his whipper-in: “Where are you riding to
before the hounds, when they are running hard ?
Keep behind them in your place. If we cannot
kill our fox without your acting thus, we had
better have a pack of whippers-in, and no hounds
at all.” I never heard of or saw the same system
again. |

Many other changes took place, which, as
being unlike what we had been used to, were by
no means agreeable to us. One of them was

E 3