trotting or cantering up to
within a few yards, then making a couple of springs and bucking over
with a great twist of the powerful haunches. I may explain that there
was not a horse of the four that had not a record of five feet six
inches in the ring. We now got into a perfect tangle of ravines, and the
fox went to earth; and though we started one or two more in the course
of the afternoon, we did not get another really first-class run.

At Geneseo the conditions for the enjoyment of this sport are
exceptionally favorable. In the Northeast generally, although there are
now a number of well-established hunts, at least nine out of ten runs
are after a drag. Most of the hunts are in the neighborhood of great
cities, and are mainly kept up by young men who come from them. A few of
these are men of leisure, who can afford to devote their whole time to
pleasure; but much the larger number are men in business, who work hard
and are obliged to make their sports accommodate themselves to their
more serious occupations. Once or twice a week they can get off for an
afternoon's ride across country, and they then wish to be absolutely
certain of having their run, and of having it at the appointed time; and
the only way to insure this is to have a drag-hunt. It is not the lack
of foxes that has made the sport so commonly take the form of riding to
drag-hounds, but rather the fact that the majority of those who keep it
up are hard-working business men who wish to make the most out of every
moment of the little time they can spare from their regular occupations.
A single ride across country, or an afternoon at polo, will yield more
exercise, fun, and excitement than can be got out of a week's decorous
and dull riding in the park, and many young fellows have waked up to
this fact.

At one time I did a good deal of hunting with the Meadowbrook hounds, in
the northern part of Long Island. There were plenty of foxes around us,
both red and gray, but partly for the reasons given above, and partly
because the covers were so large and so nearly continuous, they were not
often hunted, although an effort was always made to have one run every
week or so after a wild fox, in order to give a chance for the hounds
to be properly worked and to prevent the runs from becoming a mere
succession of steeple-chases. The sport was mainly drag-hunting, and
was most exciting, as the fences were high and the pace fast. The Long
Island country needs a pecu