ON HUNTING. 163 



thrope in Oxfordshire, the Berkley or the Beaufort in 

 Gloucestershire, without any enormous outlay for horses, 

 for the simple reason that the average runs do not pre- 

 sent the difficulties of grass countries, where farmers are 

 obliged to make strong fences and deep ditches to keep 

 the bullocks they fatten within bounds. Good-looking 

 little horses, clever jumpers, equal to moderate weights, 

 are to be had, by a man who has not too much money, 

 at moderate prices; but the sixteen hands, well-bred 

 flyer, that can gallop and go straight in such countries 

 as the Vale of Aylesbury, is an expensive luxury. Of 

 course I am speaking of sound horses. There is scarcely 

 ever a remarkable run in which some well- ridden screw 

 does not figure in the first flight among the two hundred 

 guinea nags. 



When an old sportsman of my acquaintance heard 

 any of the thousand- and-one tales of extraordinary runs 

 with fox-hounds, " after dinner," he used to ask " Were 

 any of the boys or ponies up at the kill?" If the answer 

 was " Yes," he would say, " Then it was not a severe 

 thing ;" and he was generally right. Men of moderate 

 means had better choose a hunting county where the 

 boys can live with the hounds. 



"As to harriers, the people who sneer at them are 

 ludicrously ignorant of the history of modern fox-hunt- 

 ing, which is altogether founded on the experience 

 and maxims of hare-hunters. The two oldest fox- 

 hound packs in England the Brocklesby and the 

 Cheshire were originally formed for hare-hunting. 

 The best book ever written on hounds and hunting, a 

 text-book to every master of hounds to this day, is by 

 Beckford, who learned all he knew as master of a pack 

 of harriers. 



