HUNTERS 89 



looked for, accidents will occur, and own brothers and 

 sisters differ as much from each other in temperament 

 and sagacity as they do in the human race. But a man 

 must have more than his fair share of bad luck if he 

 does not breed some good hunters, if he starts with a 

 well-bred mare of a good, well-established strain of hunters, 

 and is careful to select a sire whose progeny are famed for 

 good looks and performances in the hunting-field. It is 

 for this end that that most useful body was established, the 

 Hunter's Improvement Society, and breeders who are un- 

 successful have only to thank themselves if they have not 

 availed themselves of the opportunities placed in their way 

 of obtaining mares of authenticated pedigree. Blood must 

 tell, whether in man or in the animal kingdom. A striking 

 example of what can be accomplished in establishing families 

 of hunters is shown at Birdsall, where Lord Middleton, and 

 his father before him, has for a long series of years bred 

 almost all the horses required for his vast hunting establish- 

 ment, and it may safely be said that no Hunt servants any- 

 where else are mounted on such superb hunters as those at 

 Birdsall. Many of them are thoroughbred, and all the 

 others have so many crosses of blood that virtually they are 

 thoroughbred also, the pedigrees in many cases going back 

 for seventy years. All are of the same stamp of short- 

 legged, short-backed, but lengthy horses, with plenty of 

 bone, very much the type of the race-horse of former days 

 when heat-racing was still in vogue. Perhaps the hardiest 

 family of all, the one that is especially bred and kept for the 

 whippers-in to ride during the severe and exhausting days 

 on the Wolds, possessed as its foundation a well-bred 

 Welsh pony, about the middle of the last century. This 

 breed is almost tireless, and is especially valued and 

 treasured, and with seven or eight crosses of pure blood 

 added to the original pony cross they are now very well 

 bred indeed. The Wold country somewhat resembles the 

 Downs of the Southern counties, only it is almost all plough, 

 and the fields, though large, sometimes extending to two 

 hundred acres, are divided by very strong growing white- 

 thorn fences, with a large amount of "timber" of various 



