After reading “Pytchly’s Story” it is impossible to believe that Mr. Smith did not appreciate and act upon the moral that it points, but actually went to the other extreme of trying to hunt the Fox himself regardless of his Hounds. Yet Nimrod in his “Hunting Reminiscences” would have us believe that he did. After characteristically beginning his appreciation of Mr. Smith by describing his horsemanship, he then goes on to say that as a Huntsman he was wild, and that there was too much of the man, and too little of the Hounds to satisfy a lover of hunting. He would go away, says Nimrod, with the leading Hounds, caring nothing for the body of the pack, with his eye “forward to some point which his intuitive knowledge of the line Foxes take induced him to believe his had taken; and six times in ten he was right.” Frankly, but with great respect to Nimrod, we do not believe it; and it should be remarked that even Nimrod himself only credits Mr. Smith with six correct flashes of intuition in every ten attempts. Invaluable as are the writings of “Pomponius Ego” as “costume pieces,” even as historical references, it is open to doubt if he was really a reliable critic of the Huntsman’s Art. He certainly makes Mr. Osbaldiston do some queer things in his imaginary description of a day with the Quorn Hounds in 1826, such, for instance, as view-holloaing with his finger in his ear before a single Hound had opened in covert. But we will let that pass. It is just possible that he may have been out with Mr. Smith on one of those days when even the soundest of Huntsmen may appear to be taking liberties with the Hounds; but it is quite certain that Mr. Smith could not have consistently performed in the manner described by Nimrod during the season when he killed ninety Foxes in ninety-one days’ hunting. Six to ten is a different ratio. The phrase “the intuitive knowledge of the run of a Fox” has been somewhat freely used by more than one writer. Does any man really possess it? Can the human intelligence really get inside the instincts of the Fox and perceive exactly what he is thinking about, except on occasions which are obvious to us all? The probability is that when the Huntsman does something which is set down to his intuitive knowledge of the run of a Fox he is acting naturally and almost, if not quite unconsciously, upon a mass of accumulated experience that many seasons’ hunting has fixed upon his brain, which he can produce on demand when the situation arises. Knowledge, experience, memory, and the power of drawing on them and applying them may very likely pass for what people call intuition.