SEASON 1873-74 59 



The best sport this season appears to have been 

 on the Lincolnshire side of the country, and some- 

 what indifferent in Leicestershire owing to short- 

 running foxes. So good an authority as Brooksby 

 has said, when summing up the merits of the two 

 sides of his Grace's kingdom, "Real sport and 

 nothing but the sport being the primary object, 

 we are inclined to concede that such is more 

 likely of attainment on the Lincolnshire than the 

 Leicestershire side of the Belvoir country. For in 

 the former division the ground is, at least here and 

 there, equally favourable ; the hounds are the 

 same, while the foxes are undoubtedly better. In 

 the one you have a local field of reasonable dimen- 

 sions and less ardent aspirations ; in the latter you 

 have a swollen field, a jealous no, let us say, a 

 zealous crowd." When hounds visited the Cay- 

 thorpe Plantations and Reeves Gorse on the 

 extreme northern Lincolnshire boundary they 

 found them alive with foxes. On the line of a 

 good old dog they led the way over a country 

 from the Beacon Plantation to Normanton hill- 

 top, where they turned on to the heath land 

 by Sparrow Gorse, bowling him over in the middle 

 of a large grass field near Rauceby High Wood, 

 after making a nine - mile point. Again, on 

 November 19th, after meeting at Croxton Park, a 

 good gallop resulted from Newman's Gorse, hounds 

 going away close at the brush of their fox. Past 

 Freeby village and Thorpe Arnold, with a sharp 

 turn to Brentingby Wood, the time was thirty 

 minutes, and all the way hounds were a field or 



