THE FITZWILLIAM 325 



information. If they want to know where their fox is 

 gone, they put their noses down and find out for 

 themselves. Also, they come home with their sterns 

 waving over their backs ; and, finally, I cannot 

 describe their uniformity of appearance and general 

 strength and efficiency better than by saying that 

 the bitches are so like the dogs you can hardly 

 tell one pack from the other but by the shriller 

 music of its tones." 



Here, too, is his description of their country : — 

 " The surrounding district for many miles would 

 gladden a sportsman's heart. There are large wild 

 pastures, all overgrown with rushes and not half 

 drained, that cannot fail to carry a scent. The arable 

 land is badly cultivated and badly cared for ; boys 

 never combine the scaring of crows and the heading 

 of foxes in this favoured region, and when you do see 

 a plough it is generally lying stranded in an unfinished 

 furrow, deserted by man and horse. Large woods, 

 with deep clay ridings, holding no end of foxes, lie at 

 intervening distances from each other, to afford a 

 succession of famous gallops and a certainty of 

 hounds being left to work for themselves. . . . 

 The field is usually small in number, consisting 

 principally of hard -riding farmers and the lords of 

 the soil." 



The above is to some extent a fancy picture, for if 

 farmers in an arable country conducted their business 

 on such lines they would very soon find themselves 

 unable to hunt at all ; and, as our writer truly says, 

 the farmers form a large part of a Fitzwilliam 

 field. Moreover, there is a lot of arable in the 

 country; and the worst of all is that, unless the 

 country is ivet, scent is generally poor. In other 



