Transcriber’s Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
THE LIFE OF A FOX
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
BY
THOMAS SMITH, Esq.
Late Master of the Craven Hounds, and at present of thePytchley, Northamptonshire
A NEW EDITION WITH COLOURED PLATES AFTER
H. ALKEN AND OTHERS
AND AN INTRODUCTION BY
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1920
[All Rights Reserved]
INTRODUCTION
BY
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE
No Master of Foxhounds, alive or dead, has a greater rightto be heard than Mr. Thomas Smith. “The proof of thepudding is in the eating,” and though it is not altogethertrue that the proof of the ability to show sport is the numberof Foxes’ noses on the kennel door, the fact that Mr. Smithkilled ninety Foxes in ninety-one days’ hunting in a Countrywhich has no great reputation as a scenting country, is apiece of evidence in favour of his knowledge of woodcraft,and of his skill in applying it, which cannot be gainsaid, themore particularly when we take into account the epoch duringwhich this remarkable feat was achieved. It is true thatMr. Smith hunted Hounds when the modern system of gettingaway close behind the Fox, and trying to burst him, hadsuperseded the system that prevailed before 1750 of draggingup to the Fox and trying to hunt him down at the end of along chase with Hounds that would have been beaten forpace in the first mile by those of Mr. Osbaldiston and Mr.Smith. But much of the contemporary evidence goes toshow that Foxes were wilder in Mr. Smith’s time in the sensethat they probably had to travel long distances for their food,as there were fewer small coverts than exist to-day. Consequentlythere were fewer Foxes. It is true that these conditionswere favourable to the Hounds in that their chance ofchanging Foxes was diminished. On the other hand themultiplication of small Fox coverts with artificial earthsthat has proceeded in the last fifty years makes the killingof a lot of Foxes, especially during the Cub-hunting, an easiermatter than in the days of Mr. Thomas Smith. If the artificialearth is securely stopped late at night, and skilfullyopened at the right moment in a morning’s Cub-hunting,when the Cubs are beginning to wonder what to do, they aresure to creep into the earth, and the eating of one or moreviof them is reduced to a certainty. For this reason the countingof noses is not in these days a supreme test of the capacityof the Huntsman and the Hounds, unless all noses are writtenoff and not allowed to count until after November 1st, whenthere is not so much opportunity for digging. But each ofMr. Smith’s ninety Foxes brought to hand probably representeda re