HUNTING IN THE SNOW
CHAPTER XXVII
IN an ordinary enclosed hunting country, the advent of snow conjures up visions of horses with “balled” feet, slipping and slithering all over the roads, or else eating their heads off in the stables; while their masters tap the glass, and anathematise the vagaries of our changeable climate.
We who hunt on the fells, however, have no such misgivings, for unless the snow is very deep, or the crags heavily ice-bound, hounds can get through it all right, although following them on Shanks’s Pony is a more or less laborious undertaking. As Jorrocks says: “’Unting is all that’s worth living for. All time is lost wot is not spent in ’unting. It’s like the hair we breathe—if we ’ave it not we die”; so snow or no snow, we generally have a go at it.
Hunting under such conditions, the odds are all in favour of the hounds, for the fox is short-legged in comparison, and he makes “heavy weather” of it as he ploughs through the soft white drifts. It is then that reynard learns to travel the wall-tops when the icy blast has blown them clear of snow, and having learnt it, he often adopts the same means of locomotion again, when the ground is bare. This running of wall-tops is a trick that always slows the hounds, for scent is too far above them to reach it from the ground, the consequence is they jump up and go in single file, until they reach the point where their quarry has again descended to terra firma. Sometimes a hound will race ahead if near a corner, and perhaps strike the line; when the procession on the wall top dissolves, and away they go again full cry. The most dangerous time is when a frost comes after a slight thaw. Then, the snow-filled ghylls and gullies are veritable death-traps, with a hard, glassy surface, inclined at a steep angle. A slip at such a place may precipitate man or hound beyond recovery. More often, however, the snow is soft and damp, or soft and dry. In the latter case scent does not as a rule lie so well as in the former. In soft, wet snow there is often a capital scent, which, coupled with the bad going, lessens reynard’s chance of escape. Seeing that as a rule the chances are six to four on the fox, it is only fair that hounds should have the advantage sometimes. When hunting in the snow there is one consolation, i.e., if hounds run clean away from you, it is always possible to follow their footprints. As you toil along, the tale of their doings gradually unfolds. Here they have been bunched together, driving ahead like mad. There they have spread for a moment like a fan, only to rejoin, and continue the chase. Amongst the larger imprints you can sometimes distinguish the smaller tracks of the fox, particularly when hounds have run a bit wide of the line, as often happens on a windy day. Should hounds descend into a dale, your field glasses will pick up the distant tracks, and instead of following them, you can slip round the head of the valley, and pick them up again where hounds have gone out. So you go on, cutting corners, and dodging over towards all the likely vantage points, until at last you find hounds marking their fox in a rocky “Bield,” and with luck, you know the end of the chase is then in view. In go the terriers, a few minutes of excited barking on their part ensues, then, like a shadow, a tired fox slips away. Hounds get a view, and pell-mell down the snow-clad breast they go. The fox does his best, but he cannot pull clear, so instead he sinks his teeth into the shoulder of the fleet-footed bitch which rolls him over, and it is Who-Whoop! Sometimes a fresh fox will bolt, and away go hounds with their new quarry, while the terriers are tracking the run fox underground. If you stay where you are, they may bring him back, I have known it happen; although the chances are he will seek refuge elsewhere when hounds begin to press him.
In January and February, where there is one fox, there will generally be another, for it is the period known to our ancestors as “clicketting” time, when the dog fox goes in search of a vixen. Then you will see two lines of fox tracks running side by side, and sometimes jumbled together, but never do two foxes step exactly in one another’s footprints, leaving what appears to be a single line of tracks, as do the American timber wolves.
At night, when the moon shines down from a star-lit sky, or the wind drifts the eddying snow-flakes, and whistles amongst the crags, you can hear the foxes barking and calling far up the fellside. If you wander that way in the morning, the tale of the night’s doings will be plainly printed in the snow. Then is the time to study the habits of your quarry. You will learn more about foxes by following their footprints in the snow, than by any other method, and the same applies to otters, as well as other wild four-footed creatures. On a non-hunting day you will get plenty of healthy exercise by so doing, for hill-foxes often travel long distances at night. You will also probably discover hidden drains, gaps, smoots and the like, which you knew nothing of before, all of which discoveries may help you to account for a fox on some future occasion when you are hunting.
Lots of other tracks will be met with, in addition to those left by Reynard, but none of them will lead you astray, unless you happen to strike the footprints of a small dog. On the fells at any rate, these would probably be accompanied by the imprints of a human being, and the tracks of the shepherd’s collie are bigger than those of even a large fox. A dog spreads out his toes wider apart than a fox, and he generally trots, whereas the fox will walk for long distances. You may run across cat tracks, but these are very much rounder than reynard’s footprints, and they never show the marks of the claws, except when a cat has perhaps made a sudden spring. The cat’s claws are retractile, whereas those of the dog and fox are fixtures. A small dog, such as a terrier, which has a foot about the same size as a fox, nearly always trots sometimes on three legs; and if you follow the tracks for a bit, you will soon discover what made them. A fox has his regular runways, and you will find out just where he leaves a wood, goes through a fence, or jumps a wall. He will do the same thing when he is hunted, so it will pay you to remember all these places. When he gets to the boundary of his own particular beat, he will generally turn back, though in “clicketting” time, dog foxes often go far beyond such bounds. Here and there on a hillock, beside a post, or against a bush, you will find where reynard has “left his card,” and all other foxes which chance to pass that way will do the same. Their noses tell them who has gone before, for to a fox his nose is the same as speech and writing are to us.
In an ordinary way, foxes are not very liable to accident, but where snares are set for rabbits a fox occasionally gets caught. He pulls the snare-peg up, or breaks the string, and goes away with the wire embedded in the flesh. The copper tends to induce gangrene, and the accident generally means the loss of a foot. If found by hounds, a “three legger” has little chance of escape. As a rule he is mighty chary of traps, especially if he has been once nipped. Sometimes he may take refuge in a drain, and if the latter is narrow, he may not be able to back out, especially if another fox or foxes come in behind him. In case of a sudden flood, he may quite likely be drowned in his underground retreat. The most curious accident to a fox, that I ever heard of, occurred in a certain Lakeland plantation. A fox was found with his neck fast between two saplings growing close together, and he was quite dead. How it happened, one can only guess. Possibly he had attempted to jump through the narrow space, and had slipped down between; or perhaps he had sprung at something and jammed his head through the opening.
When you can’t ride, owing to deep snow, it is a good plan to take hounds into the big woodlands, and stir the foxes up a bit, on foot. Big woods seldom get sufficiently hunted, and foxes, finding them quiet, are inclined to congregate in them. Anyway it exercises hounds, and they like it much better than monotonous road work.
On the fells it is bad travelling in snow, and I have often wished for a pair of skis, or even snow-shoes. In places where when the ground is bare you have no hesitation in walking, you may think twice before you tackle them in winter. Spots like Striding Edge on Helvellyn, and Cofa Pike, between Fairfield and St. Sunday Crag, look very different on a wild blustering winter’s afternoon from what they appear on a hot day at mid-summer. On the high tops, the wind is often so strong that you are forced to lie down or be blown off the fell, and it drives the particles of snow before it, which cut your face unmercifully. On a fine early spring day, with snow on the hills, and a bright sun overhead, the glare is sometimes acute, almost enough so to cause snow-blindness.
Hunting on the high tops in winter, you see little wild life, with the exception of ravens and buzzards, occasional snow buntings, and perhaps a stoat in its white coat and black tail-tip. Ravens often swoop down at foxes, although I have never heard of them really molesting a fox. In the season 1920-1921, I saw two ravens circling round a fox on the sky-line of Pavey Ark, near Langdale Pikes. Hounds had disturbed him, and he was making off to safer quarters.
On the fells in winter you often see very beautiful snow and ice effects. The snow gets blown by the wind sometimes till it resembles waves of the sea, and strikes curious shapes and patterns where the gale has plastered it against stone walls. On the crags huge icicles form and hang in festoons, to drop with a rattle and smash when a thaw commences. At such a time it is wise to keep a good lookout when standing beneath a crag, as loose stones, and sometimes huge chunks of rock, have a habit of breaking loose from their moorings; and they whiz down with a very unpleasant sound, to crash on to the screes below, and go rolling down the fell side. A very small stone falling from a height is sufficient to put a man out of action, therefore it is as well to keep a wary eye open when scrambling about. The views in winter are often magnificent, and those who imagine that the fells are only beautiful in summer are sadly mistaken. I have seen far finer effects in winter than anything summer can show, effects in many instances both beautiful and awe-inspiring. Yes, both in sunshine and storm, the Lake country is hard to beat, at any rate for those who are not afraid to tackle it in its ever changing moods.
