at "the first public notice of fox-hunting" occurs in the
reign of Richard II., who gave permission to the Abbot of Peterborough to
hunt the fox:

"In Twice's _Treatise on the Craft of Hunting_, Reynard is thus
classed:

'And for to sette young hunterys in the way
To venery, I cast me fyrst to go;
Of which four bestes be, that is to say,
The Hare, the Herte, the Wulf, and the wild Boar:
But there ben other bestes, five of the chase,
The Buck the first, the seconde is the Do;
The _Fox_ the third, which hath hard grace,
The ferthe the Martyn, and the last the Roe.'

"It is indeed quite apparent, that until at most a hundred and fifty
years ago, the fox was considered as an inferior animal of the chase;
the stag, buck, and even hare, ranking before him. Previously to that
period, he was generally taken in nets or hays, set on the outside of
his earth: when he _was_ hunted, it was among rocks and crags, or woods
inaccessible to horseman: such a scene in short, or nearly so, as we
have drawn to the life in Dandie Dinmont's primitive _chasse_ in _Guy
Mannering_. It is difficult to determine when the first regularly
appointed pack of hounds appeared among us. Dan Chaucer gives the thing
in _embryo_:

'Aha, the fox! and after him they ran;
And eke with staves many another man.
Ran Coll our dogge, and Talbot, and Gerlond,
And Malkin with her distaff in her hond.
Ran cow and calf, and eke the very hogges,
So fered were for the barking of the dogges,
And shouting of the men and women eke,
They ronnen so, hem thought her hertes brake.'

"At the next stage, no doubt, neighbouring farmers kept one or two
hounds each; and, on stated days, met for the purpose of destroying a
fox that had been doing damage to their poultry yards. By and bye, a
few couple of strong hounds seem to have been kept by the small country
esquires or yeomen who could afford the expense, and they joined packs.
Such were called _trencher_ hounds, implying that they ran loose about
the house, and were not confined in kennel."

These are but short extracts, but they comprise the whole of what is said
on the first origin of fox-hunting. The rest of the article treats of the
quality and breed of horses and hounds.

FREDERICK M. MIDDLETON.

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