When the Dogs came to a fault and to cold Hunting until 20
minutes after when being joined by the missing Dogs they put him up afresh
and in about 50 Minutes killed up in an open field of Colo Mason's every
Rider & every Dog being present at the Death."

During the Revolution, when opportunity offered, he rode to the hounds,
for Hiltzheimer wrote in 1781, "My son Robert [having] been on a Hunt at
Frankfort says that His Excel'y Gen. Washington was there."

This liking made dogs an interest to him, and he took much pains to
improve the breed of his hounds. On one occasion he "anointed all my
Hounds (as well old Dogs as Puppies) which have the mange, with Hogs Lard
& Brimstone." Mopsey, Pilot, Tartar, Jupiter, Trueman, Tipler, Truelove,
Juno, Dutchess, Ragman, Countess, Lady, Searcher, Rover, Sweetlips,
Vulcan, Singer, Music, Tiyal, and Forrester are some of the names he gave
them. In 1794, in the fall of his horse, as already mentioned, he wrenched
his back, and in consequence, when he returned to Mount Vernon, this
pastime was never resumed, and his pack was given up.

Kindred to this taste for riding to the hounds was one for gunning. A few
entries in his diary tell the nature of his sport. "Went a ducking between
breakfast and dinner and kill'd 2 Mallards & 5 bald faces." "I went to the
Creek but not across it. Kill'd 2 ducks, viz. a sprig tail and a Teal."
"Rid out with my gun but kill'd nothing." In 1787 a man asked for
permission to shoot over Mount Vernon, and Washington refused it because

"my fixed determination is, that no person whatever shall hunt upon my
grounds or waters--To grant leave to one and refuse another would not only
be drawing a line of discrimination which would be offensive, but would
subject one to great inconvenience--for my strict and positive orders to
all my people are if they hear a gun fired upon my Land to go immediately
in pursuit of it.... Besides, as I have not lost my relish for this sport
when I find time to indulge myself in it, and Gentlemen who come to the
House are pleased with it, it is my wish not to have game within my
jurisdiction disturbed."

Fishing was another pastime. He "went a dragging for Sturgeon" frequently,
and sometimes "catch'd one" and sometimes "catch'd none." While in
Philadelphia in 1787 he went up to the old camp at Valley Forge and spent
a day fishing, and in 1789 at Portsmouth, "having lines, we proceeded to
the Fishing Banks a little without th