MR. A. PEASE'S HUNTING REMINISCENCES.* THERE is much in Mr.
Alfred Pease's book which reminds sts of Mr. Tom Smith's work known as the Life of a Fox, from the title of one of its chapters. The writer has much of the same keen and genial insight into the minds and views of horses, hounds, people, and last, but not least, of foxes which makes the work of the famous Master of the Craven, and later of the Hambledon Hounds such a classic. Like him he writes clearly and brightly, and if he is less intimately in touch with the daily doings of foxes in all parts of the United Kingdom, his knowledge of the life and training of the hunter is certainly more extensive than that of Mr. Smith, of whom, indeed, it was said that he could have hunted and killed a fox on foot, with a stick in his hand. But Mr. Pease was second in the House of Commons Steeplechase in 1890, and won it in 1891; so as an authority on riding his views are undeniable. The main attraction of this book lies in the chapters on "The Life of a Hunter," and on the life and work of foxhounds, with a description of an extraordinary moorland run with what we may call his native pack, the Cleveland Hounds. We think this the best description of a Tan we have ever read, except some of those by Snrtees. 'Certainly it is far more interesting than the rather dull per- formance which won such celebrity as the "Quarterly Run," from the pen of the late Mr. Apperley. The illustrations, some of them rough sketches by the late Sir F. Lockwood, add tauch to the interest of the book.
The general reader will find much that is worth reading, and something that is new, in Mr. Pease's remarks on -what we may term the "home life" of kennel and stables. We agree that the life of foxhounds is not altogether a happy one, and that when their enjoyment begins they "have a thousand troubles for their pleasure." They have to be educated and organised without being able to comprehend much cf the object of this perpetual correction and discipline. Sporting dogs other than hounds probably derive more satisfaction from existence than any others, because they quickly learn that, besides their own share of excitement, they are in constant touch with their owner's wants and wishes, and helping him where he cannot help himself. As a writer in Country Life recently put it, "An old dog takes you out shooting, or thinks that he does." Bat though the huntsman is far more in touch with each individual hound than might be supposed, these have, from the nature .of the case, to lead a barrack life. They never get into inti- mate personal relations with "people," which is the summon bonum of most dogs' existence, and all individuality is sub- ordinated except when they are actually drawing cover or running. The wonder is that hounds have not lost all dif- ferences and become stereotyped in character. Mr. Pease maintains that no such levelling of hound character has taken place. "There are the bold and the timid, the too noisy and the too silent, the sulky and the quick-tempered, the affec- tionate and the indifferent, the meek and the rebellions, the greedy and the fastidious, the quarrelsome and the kind, the light-hearted and the stout-hearted." Beauty they 'possess in a high degree. We know few prettier sights than an old foxhound and her puppies; and if any one cares to refresh his recollection of the appearance of the individuals of a pack he need only look at the reproduc- tion of Mr. Heywood Hardy's beautiful picture of the
• Hunting Bsnainisceuces. By Alfred Pease, M.P. Illustrated. Lendou W. Thacker.
"Cleveland Foxhounds at Exercise" on p. 238. The whole pack, some twenty-five couple, are swimming and splashing through the salty shallow waters of the Tees estuary, the furthest out swimming, those nearer the shore finding their feet or trotting and splashing through the little waves, with master, huntsman, and whip riding beside them.
If asked for the leading points of hound disposition, we should say courage and endurance. But the chances of ex- hibiting these qualities in a striking light come seldom, and are rarer each year. Straight-running foxes are, as a rule, more often killed than twisting, dodging foxes, though the run is more severe. Foxes themselves have also deteriorated as animals of the chase, because both they and game are preserved to such an extent that they have no distance to go for food, and simply fail to "learn" their own country. And lastly, very few parts of rural England are really suited for this kind of thing. So much enclosure so many covers, so niuch wire, and above all, too many foxes, and, if we may say so, the pace of modern hounds, all make against great and record runs. Mr. Pease's big day was in country which is not of the everyday sort. It was among the Cleveland hills and over the high moors, throngh scenes, and marked by names, most characteristic of the North Yorkshire "gills," " scarrs," "slacks," "crags," "dales," and "banks." It began somewhere near Wiley Gill at Highcliff, and it ended most appropriately near Midnight Crags, over Biledale. We do not hear much of the character of the country, but readers familiar with Yorkshire moors will gather from names and places that it much resembled the contour of that landscape over which Lord Scamperdale enjoyed the celebrated ran after Jack Spraggon bad left Mr. Sponge in Gobblecow bog. The hounds had found and killed a fox, in a place called Hell Gill, in the morning, on the hills between Roseberry Topping and Gaishorough Banks. Mr. Pease then changed horses, and rode an animal called Faraway,' an Irish thoroughbred. His brother did not change horses, but rode another Irish hunter, which had been ridden bard in the first run. The fox went through the enclosures, sheep pastures with high walls, over one or two bogs and streams, and then right out on to the moors, running for not less than nineteen miles over the open moor- land, and going this distance in 1 hour 45 minutes. "Except a solitary ploughman in Bagsdale, there was no sign of humanity all the way." At the close of this wild day's hunting the author was entirely alone with what hounds remained to run,—they dwindled to eleven couple soon after one of the older hounds had rolled over dead in the heather, and at the finish only seven couple were left. The stars were beginning to come out when he found a workman's shanty, standing near a bog which he could not cross. Into this hut he put his horse, and then went on foot along the edge of the cliff to the top of Mid- night Crags, whence he heard the hounds running some hundred feet below him in the darkness. They did not kill, and five and a half couple found their way back to their master on the moor top. "During this run the hounds dropped out as they found they could run no more. They would run out, sitting on the heather, and I could hear their dismal howling as they realised that they were ' lost ' and done." "Three hounds died of exhaustion, and the other lost ones were only got back by degrees during the week following." The performance of the horse is sufficiently remarkable, but the horse had his rider to encourage and keep him going. The hounds during the last part of the run were practically at liberty to leave off whenever they chose. They could not even get much encouragement from their master, "for the pace on the moor was too great for much speaking." Mr. Tom Smith, in his Life of a Fox, noted the astonishing speed of hounds over Northern heather. "Every hound," he says, "runs as if it had the leading scent."
One of his days in the Hambledon country (the southern uplands of Hampshire) is worth contrasting with Mr. Pease's big run, as showing the difference between a long run on bad scenting ground like the Downs, and one on the moors. They formed at 1.30 in one of Sir M. Jervoise's coverts at Marks- well, and ran almost straight for twenty-four miles into Sussex. There the fox went to ground towards dark. The run was over down roads and "green roads," but though the time is not given, the pace was evidently much slower than the Cleveland run. Two couple of hounds were lost, but turned up at the kennels forty miles off next day. This showed individual resource. But there is little doubt that generations of training and inheritance have imparted to the hound something of that acquired courage which is the result of association, discipline, routine, and combined action for a single end.
Mr. Pease's views on the rearing and education of fox- hound puppies are delightfully set out. He dwells without a pang on their awful misdeeds. How they "draw " the flower- garden, a beautiful instance of early promise ; how they seem to live on tablecloths, curtains, and doormats. He would abolish branding and "rounding," or ear-cropping. The latter has been dropped by many sensible masters, and branding is a clumsy and cruel device to save the trouble of entering and remembering hounds' names. Mr. Pease mentions a trial which foxhound puppies undergo new to many readers. They are called one name when boarded out, and often have to learn another when they join the pack, to their great perplexity. He would keep to puppy names, even if mispronounced, For instance, if a puppy entered as ' Rhetoric ' comes back answering to the name Ree-Torrick,' why, then, R,ee-Torrick ' he should remain. .1 pros of names, the author quotes Peter Beckford's huntsman, who, when asked the name of a young hound, said it was 'Lyman.' "'Lyman," said his master ; "why, James, what does 'Lyman' mean ?"—." Lord, Sir) " replied James, "what does anything mean ? "
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