288 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. 



gallop. Major Spitty, of Billericay, is a large landowner. 

 Perhaps his best covert is Mill Hill Wood, near Billericay. 

 Captain Digby Neave, of Hutton Hall, is another resident 

 and huntino- landowner, and has some excellent coverts on 

 his Hutton property, which are full of foxes, showing that 

 foxes and pheasants can live together where the owner is 

 determined to have both. Captain Neave is a son of the 

 late Mr. Sheffield Neave, who was Master of the Stag- 

 hounds before the Hon. F. Petre took them, and Captain 

 Neave's elder brother has been the master now for several 

 years, and has shown some excellent sport. Mr. Davies, 

 of Ramsden Hall, near Billericay, is another landowner 

 who, although a shooting man, is a staunch preserver of 

 foxes. The best coverts — we mean those which are the 

 surest finds, and which for years have had a reputation for 

 affording good runs — are Fambridge Hall Wood, Mundon 

 Furze, Hazeleigh Hall Wood, situated in the Maldon 

 district, Askeldam Gorse, Lord's Wood, and Baker's Grove, 

 in the Dengie Hundred. Then, in the eastern end of the 

 country, Puddle Dock, near North Ockendon, is a noted 

 covert, and though, like Fambridge Hall, it stands close to 

 the road, it nearly always holds a fox, and we have always 

 considered that the line from Puddle Dock to Laindon 

 Hills, about five miles, dead flat, without the semblance 



