Foxcatcher Don'ts

As a seasonal present to its readers, that elegant monthly The Sportsman issued an elegant supplement, "Fox Hunting Formalities," by J. Stanley Reeve, seasoned and punctilious sportsman of Haverford, Pa. Member of the Radnor and Whitemarsh Valley Hunt Clubs, second-cousin-in-law of the late Theodore Roosevelt and of the late Poetess Amy Lowell, J. Stanley Reeve has been called (last year by Town & Country) "The leading fox hunter of the leading fox hunting city in the country." Except for a few weeks many years ago when he substituted at Radnor he has never been a master of foxhounds. But he knows what M. F. H.'s like and how ordinary foxcatchers should comport themselves. Points and excerpts from his primer:

P:"Have your hunters shod by a competent blacksmith every three weeks--four weeks at the outside--and then you will practically never have to pull out of a hunt because you've lost a shoe."

P:"Do not wear ratcatcher* to an opening meet or scarlet on a cub-hunting morning."

P:"Nothing looks worse than a big flask on one side and a sandwich box on the other. Carry one or the other, but not both. . . . Do not strew the paper from your sandwich box all about the countryside."

P:Arrive ten minutes before the hounds are scheduled to start. If the fixture is near you, hack to it so as to find your seat. But do not take a short-cut through likely coverts.

P:"When the Master . . . walks past you, lift your hat to him as you do to a lady or when passing a coach and four. . . . Don't ask him where he expects to draw. . . . Where he intends hounds to draw is his and his huntsman's affair, and not yours."

P:Let the M. F. H. ride to covertside alone. "Keep at least a hundred feet behind him; then if a hound is emptying itself, you won't be so likely to override it."

P:"Never smoke a pipe until you are hacking home."

P:Try to keep on the inside of the circle when the hounds turn toward you. It makes your horse last longer because he has less distance to go. P:If you override the hounds, do not tell the Master you could not hold your horse. "Simply say, 'Sorry.' . . . Remember for the rest of your hunting life that a horse you cannot hold is the poorest of excuses for overriding hounds. If one cannot control one's horse, the hunting field is no place for one."

P:When you sight the fox say, "Yonder he goes." Say it quietly and "make sure first that it is a fox and not a cat or a cur dog. Don't say 'There it goes.' Do not get excited. Remember that foxes have been viewed and hallooed away for centuries. It is nothing new."

P:When the fox goes to ground, "do not ride up to the earth and try to look into it. There is nothing to see, only a hole. If you insist on making yourself useful, ask the huntsman if you may hold his horse for him."

P:"As you pass the huntsman, say 'Thank you, good night' to him."

*Informal riding clothes. J. Stanley Reeve is always himself immaculate and proper, a perennial figure in grey derby and white spats at horse shows, polo matches. Two years ago some Philadelphia tailors hailed him as "Philadelphia's best-dressed man." Tailors for dapper Edward T. Stotesbury and onetime Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick protested.

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