for his effort, and to
collecting him the moment he lands. The right hold brings his hind legs
under him; too hard a pull brings him into the ditch, if there is one.
By holding your hands with the reins in each rather wide apart as you
come towards your fence, and closing them and dropping them near his
withers as he rises, you give him room to extend himself; and if you
stretch your arms as he descends, you have him in hand. But the perfect
hunter, as long as he is fresh, does his work perfectly, so the less you
meddle with him when he is rising the better.

Young sportsmen generally err by being too bold and too fast. Instead of
studying the art in the way the best men out perform, they are hiding
their nervousness by going full speed at everything, or trying to rival
the whips in daring. Any hard-headed fool can ride boldly. To go well
when hounds are running hard--to save your horse as much as possible
while keeping well forward, for the end, the difficult part of a long
run--these are the acts a good sportsman seeks to acquire by observation
and experience.

For this reason young sportsmen should commence their studies with
harriers, where the runs are usually circling and a good deal of hunting
is done slowly. If a young fellow can ride well in a close, enclosed
hedge, bank, and ditch country, with occasional practice at stiles and
gates, pluck will carry him through a flying country, if properly
mounted.

Any horse that is formed for jumping, with good loins, hocks, and
thighs, can be taught to jump timber; but it is madness to ride at a
gate or a stile with a doubtful horse. A deer always slacks his pace to
a trot to jump a wall or park rails, and it is better to slacken to a
trot or canter where there is no ditch on either side to be cleared,
unless you expect a fall, and then go fast, that your horse may not
tumble on you.

A rushing horse is generally a dangerous fencer; but it is a trick that
can only be cured in private lessons, and it is more dangerous to try to
make a rusher go slowly than to let him have his own way.

The great error of young beginners is to select young horses under their
weight.

It was the saying of a Judge of the old school, that all kinds of wine
were good, but the best wine of all was "two bottles of port!" In the
same style, one may venture to say that all kinds of hunting are good,
but that the best of all is fox-hunting, in a grass scent-holding
country, divided into la