I underwent another severe day’s work in the same country with another pack of hounds. In consequence of finding plenty of rabbits in a covert near the Waterloo Inn, I remained there for some time, and my peace was undisturbed, until I was roused one morning by the strange but fine voice of Mr. King’s huntsman, Squire. After running round the covert a few times, I found that his quick pack were not to be trifled with; I therefore went straight away in the direction of Sussex. They still pressed me on through the large coverts there, and I left them in a wood, their huntsman and his master, Mr. King, imagining that I had gone to ground in a wood in Colonel Wyndham’s country—a mistake which happened in consequence of my having crept into an earth that I remembered to have seen there, but which, when I found that it was merely a rabbit earth, I left, and went on. The hounds stopped there, but it was soon discovered that they would not lie, and the delay caused my escape, for I must otherwise have been killed. It was a terribly severe day, for I had been hunted by them more than twenty miles from the place where they found me. A great part of the country I ran across was the same that I had gone over in the previous year when hunted by Mr. Smith’s pack, though the distance was not so far by some miles. The great difference I observed in these two packs was that the present one were rather faster, and could not be heard so plainly when running: this was in some measure made up for by Squire’s voice, which I so often heard to cry “Whoop!” [Illustration: FULL CRY. BY S. ALKEN. _Lent by Basil Dighton._] I was afraid to remain in these parts, so travelled westward, until I reached a wood by the sea-side near Southampton, and there, owing to the scarcity of rabbits, was obliged to seek other food, often consisting of dead fish, which I found on the shore. I had more than once a narrow escape from being shot by sailors, as they passed by in a boat at moonlight, and was induced to leave this part also. Following the sea-shore I crossed the Itchen Bridge, for I had not forgotten my escape from the swans, and would never trust myself again in water when it could be avoided, and by degrees, as the spring came on, I got into the New Forest. Fortunately for me the system of hunting in that part until near the middle of May was discontinued by Mr. Codrington, who then hunted it. He was an excellent sportsman; and would never take an unfair advantage of us, but left all to his hounds. Although I had escaped during the winter months from other good packs, it was doubtful that I could have escaped at this season, when the weather is sometimes very hot; for although, as I have observed before, the heat affects the hounds, it is more usual for them to be moving about in it than it is for us, and they therefore suffer from it less.