Keep well away from hounds, and down wind of them at a check. The steam from heated horses adds a fresh difficulty to recovery of lost scent. Look out for signs that may indicate the whereabouts or passing of the fox. Huddling sheep, staring cattle, chattering magpies, circling rooks, may mean that they see, or have just seen, the fox. Never lark over fences; it tires your horse needlessly and may cause damage and annoy the farmer. Never take a short cut through a covert that is likely to be drawn during the day; and keep well away from a covert that hounds are drawing if you start for home before the day's sport is over, lest you head the fox. Always await your turn at a gate or gap; do not try and push forward in a crowd. If you follow a pilot, do not "ride in his pocket"; give him plenty of room, say fifteen lengths, at fences, or if he falls you might jump on him. If your horse kicks, tie a knot of red ribbon in his tail. N.B.--Do not be guilty of using this "rogue's badge" for the sake of getting room in a crowd, as some men have been known to do. If a man is down and in danger of being kicked, put your own saddle over his head. HINTS CONCERNING THE HUNTER It should be remembered that in the ordinary routine the horse is fed three or four times a day. On a hunting day he gets one good feed early in the morning and loses one or two feeds. Moreover, he is doing hard work for hours together, with a weight on his back. Carry a couple of forage biscuits in your pocket to give him during the day. Also get off and relieve him of your weight when you can do so. When he is brought home, put him in his stall or box, slack the girths, take off the bridle and give him his gruel at once. Throw a rug over his loins and pull his ears for a minute or two. An old horse needs more clothing than a young one. Condition is a matter of seasons, not of months; a horse in hard condition can take without injury a fall that would disable a soft one for weeks. In old times many of Virginia's country gentlemen kept their own packs, but though some followed the hounds according to the English tradition, there developed a less sportsmanlike style of hunting called "hilltopping," under which the hunting men rode to an elevated point and watched the hounds run the fox, without themselves attempting to follow across country and be in at the kill. As a result, the fox was, if caught, torn to pieces by the hounds, and the brush and head were infrequently saved. Under the traditions of English fox-hunting--traditions the strictness of which can hardly be exaggerated--"hilltopping" is a more than doubtful sport, and, since organized fox-hunting in the United States is taken entirely from the English idea, the practice is tabooed on first-class hunting regions.