PREFzVCE 



up to the inoimtain, boy, at earlv dawn, 

 Just when the huntsman winds his cheerful horn. 

 While the lark warbles forth his matins t^'ay, 

 And soars to meet the rays of golden day. 

 Well mounted, follow where the sly fox flies. 

 For the grand base of life is Exercise. — Old Poem. 



Breathes there the man, with soul so dead. 

 Who never to himself hath said : 

 This is my own, my native land I 



Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto (>tli. 



As no contiiHious and accnrate record of the Warwickshire 

 Hunt has been published since that which was written l)y 

 " V^enator" and published in 1S87, with the e.vception of a 

 " Century of Foxhunting," by " Castor," published in 1891, 

 which perhaps does not deal with the whole question in 

 the complete manner which such an important record 

 demands, and because the former book has been for so 

 many years out of print, and many hunting- men have 

 not seen it, we trust that the "Annals of the Warwickshire 

 Hunt " will be of interest to our readers, because they 

 include all records, which are most worth reading, of days 

 gone by, and have been continued up to the latest jDossible 

 time before publication.* 



* The earliest book on t'oxliuntiug was publisla'd in 1481. 



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