This accounts for the extreme paucity of first-rate "finders." Hunting in a wild country is a far more difficult task for hounds than the ordinary chase at home.

Wherever a country is cultivated it must be enclosed.

Thus, should a flock of sheep have thrown the hounds out by crossing the scent, a cast round the fences must soon hit it off again if the fox has left the field.

But in elk-hunting it is scarcely possible to assist the hounds; a dozen different animals, or even a disturbed elk, may cross the scent in parts of the jungle where the cry of the hounds is even out of hearing.

Again, an elk has a constant habit of running or swimming down a river, his instinct prompting him to drown his own scent, and thus throw off his pursuers.