FOX-HUNTING IN MAY

CHAPTER XXVI

AT one time with many packs the killing of a May fox formed a fitting wind-up to the season. Nowadays, however, hunting comes to an end much earlier, particularly during a forward spring, the late sport being confined to a few packs in Wales, the West Country, and the North.

In a wild, provincial country it is nearly always possible to arrange for a few meets in May, and in some districts it is compulsory to do so, in order to account for lamb-worrying foxes. Farmers are long-suffering and willing to overlook minor depredations, but when a fox or foxes take to killing lambs the hounds are in immediate request. While late spring hunting entails early rising, which may not sound attractive to folk accustomed to eleven o’clock meets, it pays to be at the scene of operations before the sun has had time to dispel the dew. This is particularly applicable where hounds hunt the drag, and work up to their fox before unkennelling him. This style of hunting is still necessarily practised on the Lakeland fells, where the foxes usually lie at a high elevation. To the lover of the out o’ doors, the early hours of a spring morning are the best of the day. Everything seems clean and fresh then, from the dewdrops sparkling on the grass to the scent of the earth and the clear blue of the sky above.

In winter is is often a hardship to leave a warm bed, and breakfast by lamp-light in order to reach a distant meet, and you sometimes mentally ejaculate, “Is it worth it?” It is generally worth it, however, and so in May the preliminaries to a day with hounds on the hills do not daunt you, seeing that they can all be performed in good daylight. The first three or four hours are worth all the rest when it comes to finding and hunting a wily lamb-killer. Hounds soon pick up the overnight drag on the dew-drenched grass, and they can often rattle along with it and make a quick unkennel.

The line may prove to be that of dog fox or vixen, though you cannot be sure which until you view your fox or judge by the route taken.

It may sound very unorthodox to hunt the mother of cubs, but you have no choice if she is thought to be responsible for sundry losses in the dalemen’s flocks. Dog or vixen, one or both must pay the penalty of their misdeeds, and the price of their existence and that of their kind. The average vixen in May, although not in the best of fettle, is nevertheless quite able to run, and many a one beats hounds as the ground dries and the sun grows warmer.

Sometimes hounds drag up to the place where the litter is hidden, and there then ensues some strenuous digging until the youngsters are cornered and brought to light. From the earth far up the mountain-side they are carried down to civilisation, a home being found for them until they can be eventually turned down, or sold to improve the stock elsewhere.

While the vixen may be in the earth, she is quite as likely to be above ground not far away. If hounds hit off her line she may afford quite a decent run, and will probably try to get to ground in some safe retreat if hounds don’t overhaul her in the open. I well remember a May hunt, in which it took three men all they knew to prevent a vixen getting to ground in a disused quarry. She ran the rock ledges like a cat, and almost beat both hounds and men, though the former eventually rolled her over. Half an hour later the dog fox bolted from an earth in the quarry, and he stood up for a fast sixty minutes before hounds pulled him down in the open. After hounds left the dale there was no more lamb worrying, so there was little doubt that the two foxes killed were the culprits.

It is often said that a dog fox will try to lead hounds away from the vixen when the latter is lying up, whereas on occasion he will do exactly the opposite. Towards the end of March, 1921, we had a very fast hunt with a dog fox, which eventually got to ground just in front of the leading hound, and later it was discovered that the vixen was in the same earth. When a fox kills a lamb the carcass of the latter is often found minus head and tail. This does not invariably happen, however, as it is not uncommon to see whole carcasses of lambs lying in or about a breeding earth.

While a fox has no hesitation about eating carrion above ground, or digging down to the body of a dead sheep which has been buried, it prefers I think to do its own killing. In the case of lambs it may take one which has just died and is still warm, but though on the hills one sees lots of carcasses laid on the tops of walls, or hung in low thorn trees, etc., by the shepherds, I never remember any such carcasses having been removed by foxes.

In late April and May, hunting on the hills is a much less strenuous undertaking than in winter. There is no snow or ice on the rocks, and even on the high tops the air is often comfortably warm while visibility is generally good. Scent, too, usually serves during the early hours, and sometimes long after the sun has begun to exert its power hounds can still run hard.

Speaking of scent reminds me that I saw a statement the other day by a well known shooting man, to the effect that a setter or a pointer can often wind birds two hundred yards away, and though the scent is perfectly plain to the dog it cannot be detected by a human being. This was apropos of people often being able to smell a fox—or rather the place where a fox has passed—and yet perhaps ten couples of hounds fail to hold the line. In the first place I grant that the sense of smell, and the knowledge of differentiating between the body-scent and foot-scent is more highly developed in the pointer and setter than the hound, but it should be remembered that the two animals have for generations been worked along totally different lines. A setter is used to find stationary birds, or birds which at any rate are moving within a small area of ground, whereas a hound is expected to follow the twists and turns of his fox closely, and he seldom has need, in fact practically never requires, to wind his quarry at a distance.

A man can smell a fox only when the scent lies high, and on a day of this kind hounds can seldom run because the scent is too far above them. When scent is low, or even “breast high” to a hound, a human being cannot detect it; if he could, there wouldn’t be much need to use hounds. As a matter of fact, I have often seen hounds on the hills wind a fox at a long distance. Only the other day I saw two or three couples wind a fox lying motionless in a crag, and there was no breeze blowing in their direction at the time. A few years ago I walked a puppy for a certain Hunt, and when he was two years old that hound could find grouse, or perhaps I had better say wind them, at considerable distances. He was a particularly sensible hound, and though a grand worker at his own job I verily believe I could have trained him to be a useful gun-dog. The writer aforementioned says: “Did a man ever smell a partridge or grouse, except when served up with bread sauce?” This is rather a difficult question to answer, but speaking personally, as one who lives in sight of a moor, and is constantly on it at all seasons, I think I have smelt grouse on more than one occasion. Under certain conditions of weather the various scents in the open are more noticeable than at other times, and on one occasion at least I am convinced I could smell grouse. I do not, however, state this as an undeniable fact, as I may have been mistaken, but I made a note of it at the time, and referred to it after reading the statements made by the aforementioned writer. The latter also says: “Can birds consciously or unconsciously withhold their scent?” Here again one cannot give a definite answer, though a bird sitting close with feathers held tight, probably gives off little scent except from its breath. Anyhow, both dogs and foxes can find sitting partridges and pheasants, which seems to point to the fact that birds cannot entirely withhold their scent.

In our Lakeland country hunting generally ends somewhere about the middle of May, and both puppies and old hounds go out to their various walks, the kennels being empty during the summer. I suppose very few people have seen a fox hunted in June, but on one occasion I joined a huntsman on a fishing excursion to the hills, and he brought two couples of hounds with him. We made a very early start, found a fox directly, and eventually ran it to ground, after which we travelled on, and returned in the evening with a good bag of trout.