River Hills Foxhounds is an organized pack of private foxhounds supported by a
limited group of subscribers. The River Hills Foxhounds territory encompasses the
farm and forestland in southern Lancaster County and southwestern Chester
County. The Hunt would not be a success without the kind generosity of the
landowners. River Hills Foxhounds underlying principle is to further goodwill and
interest in safe fox hunting with a well-prepared staff and pack of hounds.
Modern fox hunting took shape in the 19th century shortly after Hugo Meynell, the father of the modern English
chase, started hunting, and it soon developed into a national pastime; Oscar Wilde famously called it
“the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”

A fox hunt is conducted by the master, and, in theory, all who take part in it do so at his invitation, even when
they pay for the privilege. The hounds, generally 15 to 20 couples (matched pairs), are controlled by the
huntsman, who may be the master himself. Two or three whippers-in assist in reconnaissance and in keeping the
hounds together as a pack. Master, huntsman, and whippers-in take precedence over all other riders to hounds.
The huntsman controls hounds by voice, his calls being known as cheers, and by his horn that produces notes of
great carrying and penetrating quality.

Participants in a fox hunt fill specific roles, the most prominent of which is the master, often more than one and
then called masters or joint masters. These individuals typically take much of the financial responsibility for the
overall management of the sporting activities of the hunt and the care and breeding of the Hunt's fox hounds, as
well as control and direction of the its staff. Master of fox hounds (M.F.H.) or Joint Master of Fox Hounds operates
the sporting activities of the hunt, maintains the kennels, and spends the money raised by the hunt club. The
master will have the final say over all matters in the field. Honorary secretaries are volunteers who collect the cap
(money) from guest riders. Whippers-in are assistants to the huntsman. Their main job is to keep the pack all
together, especially to prevent the hounds from straying or 'rioting', which term refers to the hunting of animals
other than the hunted fox. To help them to control the pack, they carry hunting whips and in America they may
also carry .22 revolvers loaded with rat-shot or blanks.

A day's hunting begins with a meet, at which the followers join the hounds, acknowledge the master, and are
frequently offered hospitality by one of their number who acts as host for the occasion. On the command of the
master, hounds move off to draw (search) the covert, which may be a woodland, a patch of gorse, or a field in
which it is suspected that a fox may be hiding. When the fox is found—the fact being signaled by the cry of
hounds, notes of the horn, and the shout “Tally-ho”—the hunt begins and ordinarily proceeds to the stage at
which the fox is viewed, a moment signaled by a high-pitched “Holloa.”

In the autumn of each year hunts take the young hounds out cub hunting or autumn hunting in order to cull
young foxes bred during closed season and to teach the hound puppies to restrict their hunting to foxes. A young
hound is considered to be 'entered' into the pack once he or she has successfully joined in a hunt in this fashion. The
red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is th prey animal of a fox hunt. A small omnivorous predator, the fox lives in underground
burrows called earths, and is predominantly active around twilight (making it a crepuscular animal).Adult foxes tend to
range around an area of between 2–6 square miles in good terrain and the red fox can run at up to 30 mph.

Once the season properly starts the idea is to drive the fox from the covert and chase it for long distances over open
countryside. The northern hemisphere season continues through to April, though a few hunts continue into early
May. Fox cubs are born between January and May, dependant on their geographical range, which means that
pregnant and nursing vixens may be hunted.

Fox hunting originated in the UK in the 1500s, but is practiced all over the world, including Australia, Canada,
France, India, Ireland, Italy, Russia, New Zealand, and the United States. In Australia, the term also refers to the
hunting of foxes The use of scent hounds to track prey dates back to Assyrian, Babylonian, and ancient Egyptian
times, and is known as venery. Many Greek- and Roman-influenced countries have long traditions of hunting with
hounds. Hunting with Agassaei hounds was popular in Celtic Britain before the Romans arrived, who used their
Castorian and Fulpine hound breeds to hunt in England. Norman hunting traditions were brought to the UK
when William the Conqueror arrived, along with the Gascon and Talbot hounds. Foxes were referred to as beasts
of the chase by medieval times, alongside the red deer (hart & hind), martens, and roes,but the earliest known
attempt to hunt a fox with hounds was in Norfolk, England, in 1534, where farmers began chasing down foxes
with their dogs for pest control. The first use of packs specifically trained to hunt foxes was in the late 1600s, with
the oldest fox hunt likely to be the Bilsdale in Yorkshire.By the end of the seventeenth century, deer hunting was in
decline. The Enclosure Acts brought fences to separate open land into fields, deer forests were being cut down, and
arable land was increasing. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, people began to move out of the country
and into towns and cities to find work. Roads, rail, and canals split hunting countries, but also made hunting
accessible to more people. Fox hunting developed further in the eighteenth century when Hugo Meynell developed
breeds of hound and horse to address the new geography of rural England.

According to the Masters of Foxhounds Association of America, Englishman Robert Brooke was the first man to
import hunting hounds to America, bringing his pack to Maryland in 1650 when he imported his horses, his
slaves, and a pack of foxhounds. The first organized hunt for the benefit of a group (rather than a single patron)
was started by Thomas, sixth Lord Fairfax in 1747. In the United States, George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson both kept packs of fox hounds before and after the American Revolutionary War.
What is fox hunting?