The Origins of “Tally Ho”

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Our Hunting World

By Derek French

The "Tally Ho" / Nancy Kleck photo

The next time you view old Reynard or that sneaky coyote slipping away from covert, you may be tempted to call out “Tally Ho.” There are occasions in the hunting field when it is appropriate to yell this call out loudly-and-clearly, but with our modern methods it is more likely that the huntsman will be informed by a whipper-in with a quick call over the hunt radio that the quarry has broken cover.

The quiet approach will be less disturbing to the hounds but it will not stir the adrenaline like the old-fashioned blood-curdling call of Tally Ho, yelled out loud at the top of your voice! Such an old-school call in the hunting field causes the mounted field to take in that extra hole in their girth, to cease “coffee housing” with their companions, and for the horses’ ears to prick forward in anticipation of exciting action to come.

Sporting Gallery, Leading Artists Benefit MFHA

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Art

By Norman Fine

Heading Home by Beth Carlson

Dog and Horse Fine Art gallery in Charleston, South Carolina, is currently hosting an exhibit of new sporting art created for the occasion by leading contemporary artists. The exhibit will be on display until March 16, 2019, and a percentage of sales will benefit the Masters of Foxhounds Foundation.

Beth Carlson, Joseph Sulkowski, and Larry Wheeler will be among the sporting painters featured in the exhibit. Jewelers Paul Eaton and Beth and Burnett de Loiselle will also be exhibiting their sporting miniatures in both jewelry, oil paintings, and sculpture.

The Meath Foxhounds at Scut Fagans Pub

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Hunt Reports

By Noel Mullins

Meath Foxhounds honorary whipper-in Johnny Clarke outside Scut Fagans pub  /   Noel Mullins photo

Scut Fagans Pub
Those who missed the Meath Foxhounds’ meet at Scut Fagans pub in Moynalvey missed one of the best hunts of the season. But more of that later.

The pub is a step back in time and so tiny that if you are having a drink and standing against the back wall, you probably could still reach the bar! With its galvanized roof, Scut Fagans has probably been there since pre-history! It has been short-listed as one of the top eighteen Irish pubs one should visit before retiring to that great hunting field in the sky. 

The Fox Meditates

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Literature

By Rudyard Kipling

It’s been eye-opening to discover the many celebrated authors of classical literarature—like Rudyard Kipling—who have produced foxhunting poetry. In addition to those poets known for their sporting literature and published in these pages, Foxhunting Life readers have enjoyed the foxhunting poems of Sir Arthur Conant Doyle, William Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, and William Butler Yeats.

What follows is a brief history of foxhunting in seven stanzas, written in the fox’s voice by Rudyard Kipling.

 When Samson set my brush afire
To spoil the Timnites barley,
I made my point for Leicestershire
And left Philistia early.
Through Gath and Rankesborough Gorse I fled,
And took the Coplow Road, sir!
And was a Gentleman in Red
When all the Quorn wore woad, sir!

When Rome lay massed on Hadrian's Wall,
And nothing much was doing,
Her bored Centurions heard my call
O' nights when I went wooing.
They raised a pack-they ran it well
(For I was there to run 'em)
From Aesica to Carter Fell,
And down North Tyne to Hunnum.

Is the Ex-Member Entitled to Wear Colors?

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Ask the Experts

By Norman Fine

Members of Foxhunting Life's Panel of Experts respond to a reader's question. (Clockwise from the top: Masters and huntsmen Marion Thorne, Hugh Robards, Jerry Miller, and Marty Wood.)

A  reader asks, “If a member who has quit the club returns to cap, is it appropriate for he or she to wear the colors of that club?”

A good question—simple and practical—yet I couldn’t think of any published rule of attire that addressed the subject.

Ghost Dog

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Photo of the Week

By Norman Fine

Ghost Dog. That’s how this foxhound is referred to in Fairfax County, Virginia.

For nearly a year now, Ghost Dog has been seen hunting through suburban properties by homeowners in Fairfax and Annandale, just west of the Washington D.C. Beltway, between Routes 236 and 50. These are busy high-speed roadways, and local residents fear he may be lost from a nearby hunt or a family, and would like to see him safely home and out of danger.

In the photograph, he appears to be clean, well-groomed, and healthy, which suggests that he actually may have an owner who simply allows him to run loose. But the hound is shy of people, and no homeowner has yet been able to lay a hand on him to look for a tattoo or implant.

We publish this appeal in the hope a reader may be ably to identify the hound or provide information. Please use the New Comment feature or respond directly to Foxhunting Life.

Posted January 23, 2019

Red Fox Hunting In Snow

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Quarry

By Doug Pifer

Doug Pifer illustration, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Game Commission

Several inches of snow blanketed the ground when I went to the barn to feed the animals. Snow stuck to every branch, stem, and twig, but my eye caught a glimpse of movement in the buffer of trees along the stream. Ducking behind the barn to avoid detection, I glimpsed a red fox about to spring into the air and pounce on a mouse.

A Foxhunter’s Childhood Memories of WWII England

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Literature

Book Review by Norman Fine

Spirit: The Lighter Side of Life In Wartime Britain, Derek French, with watercolor illustrations by Shelagh Armstrong, paperback, 309 pages, $19.95, available at AmazonDerek French, ex-MFH of the Eglinton and Caledon Hounds (ON), was raised during World War II on his family farm just twenty miles south of London in Kent. He emigrated to Canada in the 1950s with his wife, Bobbie, and began foxhunting with Eglinton and Caledon in 1988. He was appointed Master in 2000, and, after a seven-year term, continued to serve the hunt as a road whip and still writes articles for the hunt’s Stirrup Cup magazine, several of which have been republished in Foxhunting Life.

In his recently published, highly readable, and often amusing account of his war years—Spirit: The Lighter Side of Life In Wartime Britain—Derek recounts his boyhood memories as the war unfolded in the skies above the farm and upon the village below. What follows is a brief introduction to Derek, then our review of this wartime memoir as experienced by a normal, active young boy. We recommend this book enthusiastically.