The hunting field with horse and hound in America, the British Isles and France

PART I HUNTING IN AMERICA I Fox Hunting in America 17

History of fox hunting — Introduction of English foxhounds — Private packs — Brunswick Fur Club — The Norfolk — The Middlesex — The Meadowbrook — The Warrenton country — The Rose Tree Hunt

II Fox Hunting in the Sunny South ^^

Hunting dogs in the South — Politics and fox hunting — Visiting a Southern plantation — A Southern sportsman of the old school — Jim

III A North Carolina Fox Hunt by Moonlight 43

The meet — A little gossip on the way to covert — Befo' the wah — Jim's account of the chase — Old Rastus — The glory of Old Ginger — A mint julep viii Contents

PAGE

IV Fox Hunting in New England 56

Uncle Abner — A genuine sportsman of the real old sort — Two famous bird dogs — A sail — Shooting the fox — Apples and cider

V With Horse and Hounds on the Western Plains 6^

Jack Rabbit — Coyote and wolf hunting — The sporting parson — Western ways — A thoroughbred sportsman

VI Jack Rabbit Hunting with Greyhounds 72

*'In the beginning" — Messrs. Bartel Brothers' famous pack — The most beautiful dog show on earth — Coyote hunting at Colorado Springs

VII Coyote Hunting on the Plains of Colorado 83

The great plains at sunrise — Ranch life — The antelope chase — The old cattleman — A good shot — The ride of the tenderfoot — Roping a coyote

VIII The Genesee Valley 97

The valley itself — Nature of the land hunted over — The natives — Why they love the valley — A visit to the kennels

IX A Day with the Genesee Valley Hounds 109

The meet at Belwood — The Hunt breakfast — The Covert — Seven Gullies — Who-whoop

X Hunting in Canada 117

Plenty of sport — Our neighbours — A Canadian sportsman — Yachting — The Toronto Hunt Club — Women riders — A sportsman's paradise

Contents ix

PAGE

PART II HUNTING IN THE BRITISH ISLES XI Hunting in England 125

Packs of hounds — Hunting Centres — Cost — Grass countries — Racing packs — Foxes — Where to go — National characteristics

XII A Day with the Belvoir Foxhounds 136

The Peacock Inn — Belvoir Castle — Belvoir Kennels — Noted huntsmen — Perfection in hound breeding — Ben Capell

XIII Two Days with the Ouorn (First Day) 148

The famous grass countries — Hunting centres — Railway travel — The Bay Mare Inn — Hiring a hunter — A blank day

XIV Two Days with the Quorn (Second Day) 195

Richard the Bay — The meet — The chase — The brook — Colonel Richardson

XV The Royal Buckhounds 169

King Edward III — Queen Anne — The Church and the Chase — The meet at Ascot — The great assemblage — Queen Victoria — The Prince and Princess of Wales

XVI A Day with Lord Rothschild's Staghounds 179

New Year's Eve in London — The fog — The meet — The crated stag — Enlarging the stag — The chase — The capture

X Contents

PAGE

XVII The Chase of the Wild Red Deer in Devonshire 191

The Devon and Somerset Staghounds — Lorna Doone's country — The Quantock Hills — The meet — Anthony Huxtable — The Tufters — The Chase — Taking the deer — A long ride home

XVIII The Chase of the Hare 203

The hare — The old and the new school methods — Long live the Chase — Foot Harriers

XIX Foot Beagles 212

School and College Foot Beagles — The Delapre Hall Beagles — A day with an Oxford College "Cry" — Comparison of English and American college sports

XX Otter Hunting 226

The otter — Nature of the game — The otterhound — His great courage and endurance

XXI A Day with the Essex Otterhounds 235

The meet — The terriers — Hound music — A great day's sport — Love-making — How English sportsmen are accounted for — Tally-ho otter — The obliging millers

•XXII Fox Hunting in Ireland 246

The Irish hunter — His breeding and schooling — The great Dublin Horse Show — Buying a hunter

xxiii A Day with the Meath Hounds 253

Tipperary — Difficulties on the way — An exciting drive — The meet — In an Irish bog — A couple of lost souls

Contents xi

PAGE

XXIV Fox Hunting in Scotland 263

A day with Farmer McDougal — A bit of Scotch humour — Wee McDougal — A few Scotch stories — Too late for the meet— The race of his life — Bonnie Scotland forever

PART III XXV Hunting in France 279

The nature of the game — Baron de Dorlodot — The kennels — The Forest of Senouches

XXVI The Chase of the Wild Boar 287

Locating the game — The covert side — The start — The chase — Hallali! — The ceremony

xxvii Wild Stag Hunting in France 294

A day with the Marquis de Cornulier's French hounds — Taking the stag in a lake — A most exciting day's sport

xxviii A Day with the Marquis de Chambray's Hounds 299

The white hounds of the King — Starting the lordly stag — A Percheron staUion in harness — Hallali! Hallali! — The 1908th stag — In defence of the chase

Ride, Fair American: Englishman, Ride 316

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

At Bay in Horner Water Frontispiece

A. Henry Higginson, Esq., M.F.H 20

The late P. F. Collier, Esq 24

Mrs. James K. Maddux on Torchlight 26

The meet 30

The Meadowbrook hounds 30

Col. J. Chinn and Mr. H. S. Walker 2^

The two colonels 44

Uncle Abner's novel fox hunt • .... 60

Colonel Roosevelt 70

Almost 76

Mr. Nichols' Greyhounds: the meet 80

Poor Mr. Coyote 84

Xill xiy List of Illustrations

PAGE

The author with the first kill 84

In Colorado: the meet 84

Ready to start 88

Croesus 88

After the kill 88

Mr. E. J. Cameron with a roped coyote 94

Mr. Petrie's hounds : the kill 94

Future hunters and their dams 104

A meet on the lawn no

Major Wadsworth's home no

Dr. F. J. Capon 118

The Montreal Kennels 118

The Toronto pack 120

Sir Gilbert Greenall, M.F.H 138

The Duke of Rutland 14^

A crush to get through 142

Ben Capell, Huntsman 142

List of Illustrations xv

PAGE

Belvoir Castle 146

Belvoir Dexter 146

Puppies 150

The Quorn Pack " 15a

The Earl of Lonsdale, M.F.H 156

A meet at Kirby Gate 162

The field moving ofF 162

Richard the Bay at the brook 166

Lord Rothschild and Mr. Leopold de Rothschild . . .180

John Boore, Huntsman 188

Giving the stag "law" 188

The Devon and Somerset staghounds 192

Opening meet near Minehead 196

Delapre Abbey foot beagles 214

Cambridge University "cry" 220

Eton foot beagles 224

Otterhounds 228

Huntsman leading the pack . . . , 232

The Essex Otterhounds e . , 232

Trying a likely stream 238 xvi List of Illustrations

PAGE

Helping the ladies across 238

The Master and his pack: 242

Catching the scent 242

The kill . 244

Terriers hanging from otter . . 244

Baron de Dorlodot 278

The Boarhounds 280

The Dorlodot Hunt 282

Ready for the chase 284

The return of the hunt 288

The grey boar's last stand 290

Singing the death song 292

The Marquis de Cornulier's Staghounds 294

Stag taking to water 296

Waiting for the end 298

The Marquis de Chambray 300

A meet in the forest 302

Hounds ready to be slipped 304

Waiting 2^6

After the death 308

Blessing the hounds . • 312

PREFACE

Blessed be the thoughts and recollections That drive the ills and cares of life away. While they bring again serene reflections Of all the joys we had along the way.

CROSS Country with Horse and Hound" has proved a happy disappointment, especially to the author. There being but few hunt clubs in America, it was argued that there were comparatively few who were personally interested in cross country riding to hounds; it was therefore with some misgivings that the book was brought to light. The effort, however, has received such hearty endorsement from the reading public in general, and has had such pleasant things said about it by the hunting fraternity in particular, both in England and America, that the writing of this second work has become doubly enjoyable. It may be said to have been undertaken in response to an encore.

Next to a cross country ride itself, comes the pleasure of living it over again with whoever has the ear for hearing it, and an imagination keen enough to supply what neither pen nor pencil is able to produce.

There seems to be born in every man a taste for country life and in most men a love for the chase. We probably inherit our longing for the fields from our mother Eve, whose desire to return to the garden must have been very great, so great in fact, that the world will never stand long enough to see it eradicated from the system of her descendants. It is from the "old man" perhaps, who was obliged to hunt for a living after losing his farm, that we inherit a desire for

10 Preface

the chase. This taste for country life and the chase is, in many cases no doubt, lying dormant in the system. It simply needs awakening to inoculate the whole being with an insatiable thirst for the field, the wood, the chase.

The kindly reception of "Cross Country with Horse and Plound" would indicate that many a soul is tuned to the melody of hound music, and the spirit of the chase, that never heard the one, nor participated in the other. No author can have greater pleasure than the thought that in many such he may have awakened a sentiment that will burn with a will. If so, the sequel is near at hand, for where there is a will the way is not far of finding; if not in whole, in part. Hunting, yachting, shooting, fishing, it will surely find a vent somewhere and somehow.

"The Hunting Field with Horse and Hound" is really volume No. II to "Cross Country with Horse and Hound."

It is the hope of tliis volume, as it was of the one preceding it, to encourage a love for country life, to create anew in many dormant natures, a taste for manly games of sport, especially for men after they have left school and college, and also to promote the chase, that "noble science," formerly called the sport of Kings, but which may nowadays more properly be styled the King of sports.

Not alone is it the object of this book to hunt with horse and hound in different lands. A fox chase, for instance, is a fox chase the world over, and if all there was to fox hunting came out in the chase, the description of a single run would answer the purpose, all the others being fox chases ditto. The interest found in fox hunting with the different packs of hounds and in different countries we shall take the reader to \isit, lies principally in the people and not in the game or the hounds. Especially is this true of fox hunting in the New England states and the sunny South, wliile in Ireland and Scotland we must not miss the native sparkle of the one nor

Preface 11

the delightful humour of the other. If the writer shall succeed in transmitting to these pages the spirit of the chase, the breath of the fields and the aroma of the forest, and shall uncover sufficiently the hearts of some of the true and noble sportsmen it has been his good fortune to meet, this work will have accomplished its purpose. If, on the other hand, it can be read without leaving in the reader's mind anything beyond a ride on horseback while racing after a fox, or other game, then is the writer's failure complete.

Past masters in the art and science of hunting will please bear in mind that the writer is but an amateur, and that he comes, not to save the men and women who are already in the field, but to convert the heathen, to preach the gospel of true sport and genuine sportsmanship, and to hunt for the real joys to be found in hunting; viz., pleasure, health, strength, and long life, which are vouchsafed to all who worship at its shrine.

Hunting is about the only stimulant that leaves no scar. It is about the only indulgence to which we may turn, that does not come back to plague and torment us; it is the best remedy through manhood and age, that can be relied on to lighten the heart, drive away sorrow and fortify us against the disappointments of life, and to postpone to the latest possible date the sending of our wills to probate.

In recording herein the accounts of some glorious days with horse and hound, as they still live in the recollection of the author, he has selected such as give the greatest variety to the chase, both at home and abroad. The account of the two days with the Quorn, and a day with the Devon and Somerset staghounds in England, have appeared in the "Country Gentleman" and "Rider and Driver." Portions of the other chapters have appeared in "Harper's Weekly" and the "Sporting Illustrated News." By kind permission of the editors, they are with slight modification reproduced herewith.

12 Preface

The day with the Genesee Valley hounds is, in reality, part of the three days' sport. All other days are faithful records of the chase, with the hounds ridden to, with possibly the least bit of colour now and again in connecting the events. The work is believed to cover every class of game ridden to with hounds, besides foot beagles, foot harriers and otterhounds.

Again the writer takes pleasure in caUing upon his old friend, W. Phillpotts Williams, for hberal quotations from his delightful "Poems in Pink" and "Rhymes in Red," and the immortal Somervile, who so often came to the writer's rescue in his former volume, when his own pen was "up a stump" for the right thing to say.

Some of the chapters which stand next to each other in this book were written fifteen years apart, most of them were thrashed out during the time spent in ocean crossings between 1891 and 1906. This probably accounts for some chapters having a list to port and others to starboard, while still others alternately head for the bottom of the sea or a star at meridian. They may be like a clock, the great temperance lecturer, John B. Gough, was fond of telling about, i. e., when its hands pointed to twenty minutes past eleven and it struck four "the owner" said he "knew it was just one o'clock." So with these chapters, it matters little where they point or how they strike, as long as the reader understands they point to clean sport and strike for true sportsmanship.

It is with great pleasure that the author is able to present herewith six full page reproductions of oil paintings, done especially to illustrate the text, by the clever horse and hound artist, Juhan Ingersoll Chamberlain. Whatever may be said for or against their artistic merit, all hunting men will enjoy them for their true hunting spirit and the life-like action of both horses and hounds. To the numerous Masters of hounds, clever huntsmen and brother sportsmen both at home and abroad, who have done so much to make this volume possible,

Preface 13

the writer simply goes into bankruptcy; his debts of gratitude can never be paid.

It is singular in looking back over the twenty odd years which this and the previous volume cover, how all the "blank days, all the cold, rainy, disagreeable days," are quite forgotten, the days when for some unaccountable reason we were unable to get on good terms with our mount, the days when we had to work our passage from start to finish of the run, steering or trying to, some hard-mouthed ill-humoured brute.

Yes, it is singular how these unpleasant, these disagreeable dkys are quite forgotten, and that it is only the best and really glorious days that live on to cheer and brighten. This is just as it should be. It is such days as are herein recorded that make the blood canter again at the sound of galloping hoofs. It is the recollection of such days as these that in spite of grey hairs and rheumatic twitches — makes one feel all over young again. An affection for the chase, especially riding to hounds, invariably deepens in the hearts of most hunting men with increasing years, until the sight of a matronly-looking mare makes them quite as solicitous as a father for his expectant first-born, while a foal at foot of their favourite hunting mare makes them as foolish as a grandfather in his dotage. The author does not speak from personal experience of this latter condition, but he feels it coming on, and judging from those who have gone this way before him, he is getting there all too fast.

Well, let it come and may the setting sun shed its parting light on no meaner or less cheery picture than recollections of "The Hunting Field With Horse and Hound."

PART I HUNTING IN AMERICA To

Maj. W. A. Wadsworth,

M. F. H. Genesee Valley Hunt.

'Hold hard for a moment, the hounds are collecting. Old Benedict speaks, how they fly to his cry! The thought of the chase all our senses inflecting. We wait in the hopes of a sweet by and by"

Poems in Pink.

HISTORY OF FOX HUNTING INTRODUCTION OF ENGLISH FOX- HOUNDS PRIVATE PACKS BRUNSWICK FUR CLUB — THE

NORFOLK THE MIDDLESEX THE MEADOWBROOK THE

WARRENTON COUNTRY THE ROSE TREE HUNT.

"C^OX hunting in America began — well, to be accurate, "In -'■ the beginning," or as the old time historians were fond of saying, "at a time in the history of the nation to which the memory of man runneth not contrary." If foxhounds did not come over in the Mayflower, it was very soon after. At any rate they were introduced into Virginia by the earliest settlers. British army officers brought hounds with them to this country, as they have done to every other country to which they have been sent, whether their mission was one of peace or war.

Many persons in both the southern and New England states are fond of repeating to this day family traditions to the effect that some progenitor at some time brought, or had sent over, to this country, a few English foxhounds, or "hunting dogs" as they were generally termed.

In England they originally hunted with mixed packs. The southern or bloodhound, that hunted entirely by scent, was depended upon to drive or follow the chase in the thicket, while the speedier greyhound, which runs entirely by sight, took a hand when the game was driven into the open. The crossing of these two ancient families with a view of producing a combination dog with speed, nose and tongue, developed the present Enghsh foxhound which, at the time of the first importations to this country, must have been a family with anything but a fixed type.

This country was so large and people lived at such great

18 Tlie Hunting Field With Horse and Hound

distances apart, that instead of packs of hounds being hunted by organised clubs, individual ownership became the rule.

This individual ownership of hounds in America is still the rule, except on special days like Thanksgi\ang, election day, Christmas or New Year's, when all the neighbouring hounds are brought in to some town or farm agreed upon for a general hunt to be followed by a dinner, or a dance, or both.

There are, of course, a good number of organised packs of hounds in America, hunting with either English or American hounds, that hunt on regular days throughout the season after the English custom, but the great fraternity of fox hunters in America are confined to private or individual packs, which probably number among the thousands. Then there are a few semi-organised packs that are hunted with some regularity and are somewhat under control of an appointed 9r recognised huntsman, as in Lexington, Kentucky. I refer to that most prominent hound breeder of the blue grass country. Col. Roger Williams. When his pack goes out and is heard giving tongue, every hound from every plantation within hearing joins in by his own invitation (of course he is welcomed), and although his independent methods of hunting make him an ungovernable member of the pack, —

^'He joins the glad throng That go racing along.

For he must go hunting to-day."

Next to Kentucky, there is probably no keener lot of fox hunting men than is to be found in New England. The casual observer would never suspect it, but a httle inquiry among the rival towns will show that "the woods are full of it."

Among the organised hunt clubs of New England the Brunswick Fur Club, an organisation that was started as an annual fox hunt, but of late years has come to be a hound show with field trials, brings together a very large number of fox hunters, hound breeders and fanciers with representative hounds of private packs from Virginia, Kentucky and even South Carolina.

The Norfolk Hunt at Medfield, Massachusetts, is one of the smartest up to date hunt clubs of New England. The genial M. F. H., Mr. Henry Vaughan of Boston, has devoted much personal attention to the organisation and the building of a very attractive club house. A better stud of high class heavy weight hunters it would be hard to find in any American Hunt. Mr. Vaughan hunts a drag pack, also a wild fox pack, so there is something doing nearly all the time. The huntsman is a man of great experience in kennel management and a nailer to follow when hunting the hounds. The hunt is over rough stone walls and timber country.

The Myopia Hunt at Wenham is to Boston what the Meadowbrook is to New York. The writer has no personal knowledge of this club, but its reputation has gone far and wide, especially as one of the wealthiest hunt clubs in America, and as "money makes the mare go" they have certain advantages perhaps over their less favoured rivals.

The writer's ideal sportsman is the man or woman who knows the game from A to Z. He would eliminate ever^^ pastime from the list of sports that did not begin and end in the skill and prowess of the sportsman himself. A man who rides his own racehorses is a sportsman, the man who races horses with a jockey may be a sport, but he is no nearer to being a sportsman than a person who pumps a pianola is to being a musician. The man who sails his own yacht is a sportsman, the man who togs out in yachting clothes, because he has a steam launch and a hired man to run it, may pass for a yachtsman, but not for a sportsman. Motoring, except racing between owners who drive their own cars, may be called recreation, but it is too much of a tax on imagination to call it sport or the owners sportsmen.

It must not be inferred from the above that there are no genuine sportsmen among wealthy Americans. While wealth seems to be a great handicap to sportsmanship, many men in our country are justly entitled to the distinction in spite of wealth, and furthermore, the writer believes the hunting field affords more numerous examples of this than any other American sport.

For instance, the blood of some good old British sportsman, after lying dormant for many years, has lately come to hfe with the freshness of spring in the person of Mr. A. Henry Higginson, Master of the Middlesex Hunt, who resides at South Lincoln, some eighteen miles west of Boston, Mass. Mr. Higginson is not only the proud possessor of one of the best packs of English Foxhounds in America, but better still, he has caught the true spirit of hound breeding and has given the subject his personal attention. Beginning some ten years ago, Mr. Higginson tried many experiments with beagles until in 1903 he felt ready to undertake the main object he had always had in view, the formation of a really A No. 1 pack of hounds.

The Middlesex Hunt is favoured with a good class of landowners, who welcome the riders and hounds over their fields. A gamekeeper is employed who spends much of his time in looking after the young foxes that are raised in the Middlesex territory and in stopping their earths prior to a day's hunting. This makes it possible to kill, and this is essential, for it is certainly very discouraging to hounds, if not to riders, to go out day after day and season after season for this purpose and never to accomplish it.

If you want a good time all the time, pay a visit to the Middlesex Kennels. A walk and talk with Cotesworth, the huntsman, when he goes out to exercise the pack or when feeding his forty odd couples of most promising puppies, will surely be accounted a treat, for there is probably not a better

A. HENRY HIGGINSON ESQ., M. F. H.

posted or more experienced huntsman and hound breeder in America. It is a well grounded notion in America that we cannot breed foxhounds with the bone, style and carriage as seen in England. This, as the writer has always maintained, is a mistake, and it is a great pleasure to see the success that Cotesworth is having in developing these qualities at the Middlesex Kennels. It is also most gratifying to know that the American-bred hounds from imported English sires and dams are showing a greater inclination to work out a cold line than either their sires or dams. This goes to prove quite conclusively that it is possible that the fault with the English hounds brought to tliis country is not so much a question of nose which prevents their following a cold line, but indifference or lack of inclination to hunt such a line. Of course it amounts to the same thing, so far as producing results, but the writer has long been of the opinion that it is not so much the noses of English-bred hounds that are at fault, as that never having been called upon to do such plodding work in England as is necessary in this country, they quit, not because they cannot follow the hne, but because they won't.

We are offered a good illustration of this at Middlesex. The hounds bred there from English parents work with more persistency than the best of the imported ones.

Mr. Higginson's great stud dogs, Vaulter and Vanguard, in conformation at least, are very superior foxhounds. Their wonderful depth of body and lung capacity, great bone and muscle, as indicated by the size of the forearm, almost faultless feet, together with grand carriage of the head and stern, make them hard ones to beat. Vaulter's measurements are as follows : height from flags to breast between forelegs, twelve inches, height at shoulders twenty-five inches, height of body at stern twenty-five inches, girth of forearm eight and one-half inches. If these measurements are compared with those of the great Gambler, that Gillard pronounced the most perfect hound ever produced in England, it will be seen that Vaulter comes very near to fitting the scale. Be that as it may, he is a very grand specimen.

Mr- J. I. Chamberlain, who was referred to in the preface, designed Mr. Higginson's kennels, which possess so many valuable features. Not only is the Master to be congratulated on the up-to-date manner in which he has equipped the Middlesex Hunt establisliment, but the great fox hunting fraternity at large is under lasting obligations to him for the interest he has taken in hound breeding. The writer believes his exertion in this particular, will prove the beginning of a competition in hound breeding among masters of hounds in America that will not only add greatly to the interest of fox hunting, but elevate the standard of the American bred hounds, be they of American or English descent, to the same exalted position which they enjoy in England.

The Meadowbrook Hunt, with kennels at Hempstead, Long Island, has a wide reputation among the society folks and is on that account often spoken of as "the Swagger Hunt of America."

While under the mastersliip of that most' gentlemanly all round sportsman, Mr. Ralph EUis, it was the writer's good fortune to visit the country for a few days and to participate in the chase.

The Meadowbrook was in those days a drag hunt, pure and simple, but since then through the efforts of some real hunting spirits, a pack of English bred hounds were imported for hunting the wild red fox with which that portion of the island has been liberally stocked. The writer, however, only speaks from his personal experience with the club as a drag hunt. Although this style of riding to hounds can, by no stretch of the imagination, be called hunting, it has the advantage of insuring the members, most of whom are business men in town, a sure gallop every time they go out.

While the club has often been ridiculed by New York city papers, nowhere in America, or in the world, let us hope, can any other hunt club be found riding to such stiff timber fences, and nowhere in America at least that the writer has ever ridden, except in the chase of the coyote and Jack Rabbits with greyhounds on the open plains, is the pace as fast as it is with the Meadowbrook draghounds.