June 26, 2013
Jim Atkins…Huntsman…Virginian
Douglas Lees photoJim Atkins, the well-known and greatly admired native Virginian huntsman, died on Tuesday, June 25, 2013, after suffering a heart attack. Although Jim had retired from hunting hounds, he was highly respected as a judge of foxhounds, most recently judging the Crossbred Ring at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show earlier this month.
Jim served as professional huntsman for the Old Dominion Hounds (1978–1987), the Piedmont Fox Hounds (1987–1989), and finally the Warrenton Hunt (1993–2005).
“Jim has to be recognized as one member of that exceptional group of natural huntsmen from Rappahannock and upper Fauquier Counties,” said Dr. Will Allison, ex-MFH of Warrenton. “As boys, they grew up hunting to put food on the table. They developed an innate feeling for game.”
The Voice of Bugle Ann: An Excerpt
This 1935 foxhound classic, reprinted by
The Derrydale Press in 2001, is cloth bound,
128 pages, $18.95, in the Foxhunting Life Shop.Although we can't hunt in the summer, we can read about hunting! Here's an excerpt from a foxhunting classic, the first of two slim novels, the second of which, Daughter of Bugle Ann, we featured six months ago.
Her voice was something to dream about, on any night when she was running through the hills. The first moment she was old enough to boast an individual voice, Springfield Davis swore that she would be a great dog, and within another month he had give her the name she carried so proudly.
One of her great-grandfathers, many generations removed, had followed Spring Davis away from home when he went off to join General Claiborne Jackson and his homespun army among the prickly-orange hedges, so there was logic in the inheritance which put that trumpet in her throat.
