The Master of Fox Hounds (MFH) oversaw the day-to-day business of every hunt. Among his responsibilities were hunt finances and the breeding and care of the hounds. He was expected to keep the goodwill of local farmers, and to ensure a supply of foxes to be hunted. The job carried great prestige and heavy responsibility, for the master would be blamed for a poor day's hunting.

The sporting novelist, RS Surtees, described an ideal master as having "the boldness of a lion, the cunning of a fox, the shrewdness of an exciseman, the calculation of a general, the decision of a judge, the purse of Squire Plutus, the regularity of a railway, the punctuality of a time-piece, (and) the liberality of a sailor."

On the day of a hunt, the master oversaw the conduct of everyone taking part, and would discipline riders who got in the way of the hounds. He was a respected and feared figure, whose rebukes could become famous. Henry John Conyers, master of the Essex Hunt from 1803 to 1853, had this celebrated exchange with a Liberal MP:

Conyers: "Damn you sir, where are you going?''
MP: "Mr Conyers, I did not come out to be damned.''
Conyers: "Then go home and be damned."

During a hunt, a master might have control of the hounds, or delegate the work to a professional huntsman, who carried a horn, assisted by one or more "whippers-in". Their job was to keep the pack together - "whipping in" any straying hounds and stopping them running into the roads. This is the origin of today's Parliamentary "whips", who prevent MPs straying into the wrong lobby during a vote.

The other riders, called "the field", participated simply by following the hounds. The master, huntsman and whippers-in wore scarlet coats to distinguish them from the hunt followers.

The season

Fox-hunting took place during a close season, lasting from November until March, a period chosen to avoid damage to crops and livestock. Before the season began, there was a period known as "cub hunting", lasting from August until October. Young hounds have to be taught to hunt foxes, so they were taken out with the experienced dogs and sent into the brushy coverts (pronounced covers) to kill young fox cubs.

Blocking the earths

Foxes hunt by night, and return to their earths (burrows) in daylight. So, on the night before a hunt, while most foxes were away from their earths, all the known earths in an area were blocked up. This ensured that some foxes would be above ground to be hunted, and stopped them escaping down a hole during the hunt.

The day of the hunt

A day's hunting began at mid-morning with the "meet", the gathering of riders. The huntsman then sent the hounds into a selected covert. He encouraged them with his voice as they moved silently through the grass, sniffing the ground for the fox's scent. This was called "drawing a covert", and the aim was to make a fox break for open ground. Failure to find a fox in a covert was called ''drawing a blank'' - another fox-hunting phrase that has entered everyday language.

The killing of a fox at this stage, called "chopping a fox in a covert", was considered a waste. In 1851, a Berkshire foxhunter made fun of a foreigner who misunderstood this:

"I recollect once having met a foreigner at a foxhunt. The horses and dogs were in the best of spirits, the sky was everything that it ought to be, and everything looked promisingly, and augured a good day's sport; but there occurred one of those untoward accidents...and the fox was chopped in cover. My friend the foreigner thereupon turned to the Master of Hounds...and exclaimed: 'Oh, my lord Duke, I congratulate you on having killed the animal so soon, and with such little trouble!"

If a hound found the scent of a fox, it would whimper, and the whole pack would soon be in full cry - a sound known as "hound music" to hunting people. Once the fox ran into the open, the first person to see it would shout "He's away!" or "Tally ho!", drawing the huntsman's attention. This was called "holloaing" (pronounced "hollering''). The huntsman then gave a blast on his horn, the call of "Gone Away", gathering the hounds together and sending them off in pursuit.

Listen to a huntsman's horn here

In his 1862 novel Orley Farm, Anthony Trollope, a keen hunter, described the thrill of this moment:

"And then the music of the dogs became fast and frequent, as they drove the brute along from one part of the wood to another. Sure there is no sound like it for filling a man's heart with eager desire to be at work. What may be the trumpet in battle I do not know but I can imagine it has the same effect."

Once the hounds were all clear of the covert, the riders galloped after them. The hounds chased the fox until they caught and killed it, or lost its scent. If the fox was able to find an unblocked earth, the huntsman blew another signal on his horn  - "Gone to Ground".  He might then decide to send terriers into the earth to chase the fox out or kill it. If the fox's scent was lost, the huntsman had to guess where it was likely to have gone. He gathered his hounds together, flinging them out in a "cast", a wide circle helping them to regain the scent.

If the hounds caught the fox, they would tear it apart, while the huntsman gave a cry of "whoo-whoop!" He had to swiftly rescue the carcass from the hounds in order to cut off the head ("mask"), tail ("brush") and feet ("pads"), given as trophies to selected members of the field. The rest of the animal was flung to the hounds to eat.

In his History Of Fox Hunting (1976), Raymond Carr summed up the unpredictability of the sport: "Not every day gives the field the supreme excitement of a long fast gallop. Coverts may hold no foxes and be drawn blank. Scent may be poor and there will be pottering about. The hunter may go home cold or soaked to the skin, without anything he can boast about to his friends."