42 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



That love of hunting is still a very strong feature of the city of 

 Leicester and its immediate vicinity, will readily be believed. 

 Birth, tradition and education combine to maintain the feeling, 

 in spite of the business instincts and vast manufacturing growth 

 developed by the county-town during the last ten or fifteen 

 years. Previous to that, Leicester was, if not a hunting-centre, 

 nothing at all. Lord Gardiner and his comrades made the Bell 

 at Leicester almost as well-known as the Old Club at Melton. 

 Now, people who live there hunt — though they are by no means 

 invariably the men whose income is of Leicester-make or 

 Leicester-proportion. But no one any longer comes there for 

 the pure object of fox hunting — any more than fifty years ago 

 they would have come to make a fortune by means of elastic 

 web. Teiwpora mutantur — but it is not a bad sign that a score 

 or so of men can turn out at dawn, and wend their way through 

 miles of houses to join the Quorn before breakfast hour. Thus 

 on Friday, Oct. 6th, there was quite a field — to see the prelimin- 

 ary cub killed at the Barkby Hall Spinnies, and to join in the 

 after-fun, though visiting sportsmen, like the woodcock, seldom 

 appear in any quantity till after the first north-east wind in 

 November. 



Barkby Thorpe Spinney is only a mile or so away, forming 

 one of a series of little copses. Under recent management and 

 improvement it has now arrived at about three acres of densest 

 covert ; and, what is better, has become the nest of a numerous 

 and promising family. Holloa-away and tallyho-back — the 

 changes rung and repeated — foxes out and foxes still in. The 

 latter form the chief employment in October — if a goodly 

 November is to be provided. But hounds shortly dashed out 

 and away with a third one — while other frightened cubs still 

 ran here and there, barely escaping destruction at the mouths 

 of the stragglers hurrying up to the cry. Twixt Barkby Village 

 and Barkby Holt are small grass fields and strong fences every 

 hundred yards. To be among these in February would be a 

 pleasant excitement — in October there was all the excitement, 

 with the pleasure discounted fifty per cent, by the demon that 



