258 THE WAEWICKSHIRE HUNT. [1862 



meet was at Alcester on April 4tli, 1862. They were out 

 ou 107 clays, and killed 40^ brace of foxes, and ran 25^ 

 brace to ground. 



The following remarkable account of Lord Thanet's 

 fox appeared in the Chester Chronicle : 



The late Earl of Thanet was in the Labit of reinoviug every year -with liis 

 hunters and hounds from Hothfield, near Ashford, in Kent, to another seat 

 he had in Westmoreland. A short time previous to one of these removals, a 

 fox had been i*nn to earth near Hothfield, and upon being dug out he proved 

 to be so extraordinary large and fine a one that Lord Thanet directed it to 

 be conveyed to Westmoreland. In the course of the next season a fox was 

 run to earth again at Hotlifield, and upon being dug out the huntsman, 

 whippers-in, and earth stoppers all declared that it was the same fox which 

 had been taken into Westmoreland, as it had an unusually large white blaze 

 on its forehead.* Lord Thanet was exceedingly energetic in his expressions 

 of disbelief of the statement of his people, but they persisted in their 

 assertions, and, having ear-marked the fox, he was again taken into West- 

 moreland, and turned loose in the neighbourhood of Appleby Castle. When 

 hunting the next season at Hotlifield, a fox was killed at that place which 

 proved to be the one in question, and which had thus twice found its way 

 from Westmoreland into Kent. By what instinct or exertions of its faculties 

 the animal was enabled to do this (the distance from the one part to the 

 other being above 320 miles) it is not easy to form an idea. Its well-known 

 cunning one might suppose would be of little aA'ail in sucli an emergency, 

 except in enabling it to procure food. 



On June 5th, 1862, the very sad and sudden death of 

 Lord Willoughby de Broke took place. He was at a meet 

 of the Four-in-Hand Club on the last Saturday of May, 

 on which occasion I drove wdth him on his coach, and he 

 appeared to be in his usual health and spirits, but his death 

 occurred only four days afterwards. He had been the 

 mainstay of the Warwickshire Hunt for twenty-three years, 

 during nearly the whole of which time he had been Master 



* A whole litter of foxes will often have the same peculiar mark. I remember 

 some white padded foxes at Ld. Heneage's place, Hainton, iu the Southwold country ; 

 and there were some piebald foxes in the V.W.H. A curious incident took place in 

 connection with this white-padded fox. My cousin, the Eev. A. T. Fortescue, showed 

 me the day before a place close to Ld. Heneage's house where this fox was always lost, 

 and sure enough we lost him there the next day. The Master was not out, so I sort of 

 helped boss the job, as I was very anxious to have the white pad for a paper cutter, and 

 I rode all among the cucumber frames and searched the outhouses looking for him. 

 Curiously enough, Mr. Eawnsley, the best gentleman huntsman in England, I have 

 heard him called, never killed him, but Mr. Wright, who now has the Fitzwilliam, came 

 down with his pack and got hold of him. Cecil (p. 90, 1851 ed.) says: "A fox from 

 Xewark Park, with the Duke of Beaufort's hounds, was seen to run the top of the 

 walls."— W. R. V. 



