vi HUNTING REMINISCENCES 



twelve seasons' sport with the Belvoir, should lead 

 the gallop over these pages. 



My feelings prompt me to dedicate this volume 

 to the memory of my late master, Lord Charles 

 Cecil John Manners, Sixth Duke of Rutland, as a 

 slight token of unchanged regard and esteem. The 

 kind personal feeling and interest always shown by 

 the house of Manners towards me during my long 

 tenure of office as huntsman to the family pack, 

 has been an inspiration to excel so far as in me lay. 

 To encouragement from the late Duke of Rutland 

 I owe the habit of keeping a continuous record of 

 the doings of hounds in the field through all my 

 time, to which fact this book owes its origin, and I 

 venture to hope that the anecdotes and sayings 

 recorded therein of a succession of generations of 

 sportsmen who have made Leicestershire famous 

 will be read in no unkindly spirit, but will keep 

 their memory green for many a year to come. 

 Amongst those whose remarks in print I value 

 greatly and have kept for reference when discussing 

 hounds, are those of Mr. G. S. Lowe, Captain 

 Pennell Elmhirst, Plantagenet, and Phantom, of 

 the Field newspaper, who spent many an hour on 

 the flags with me at Belvoir. The writings, too, 

 of Whipster of Land and Water, and Tally-ho of 

 the Grantham Journal, I gratefully acknowledge ; 

 whilst through the kind permission of Mr. Basil 

 Nightingale, the proprietors of Land and Water, 



