212 ORIGIN OF FOX-IIUNTIXG. 



reign of Queen Anne, as they are now in the preserved 

 deer-forests of the Highlands of Scotland. 



" When wild deer became scarce, the attention of 

 sportsmen was probably turned to the sporting qualities 

 of the fox by the accident of harriers getting upon the 

 scent of some wanderer in the clicketing season, and 

 being led a straight long run. We have more than once 

 met with such accidents on the Devonshire moors, and 

 have known well-bred harriers run clear away from the 

 huntsmen, after an on-lying fox, over an unrideable 

 countiy. 



" Fox-hunting rose into favour with the increase of 

 population attendant on improved agriculture. In a wild 

 woodland country, with earths unstopped, no pack of 

 hounds could fairly run down a fox. 



" I have found in private records two instances in 

 which packs of hounds, since celebrated, were turned 

 from hare-hounds to fox-hounds. There are, no doubt, 

 many more. The Tarporley, or Cheshire Hunt, was 

 established in 1762 for Hare-hunting, and held its first 

 meeting on the 14th November in that year. * Those 

 who kept harriers brought them in turn. ' It is ordered 

 by the 8th Eule, * that if no member of the society kept 

 hounds, or that it were inconvenient for masters to bring 

 them, a pack be borrowed at the expense of the society.' 



" The uniform was ordered to be ' a blue frock with 

 plain yellow mettled buttons, scarlet velvet cape, and 

 double-breasted flannel waistcoat. The coat sleeve to 

 be cut and turned. A scarlet saddle-cloth, bound singly 

 with blue, and the front of the bridle lapt with scarlet/ 

 The third rule contrasts oddly with our modern meets 

 at half-past ten and half-past eleven o'clock : ' The 

 harriers shall not wait for any member after eight o'clock 

 in the morning.' 



