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FOX-IIOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



man in the first brook — to write more. So to bed before Cold 

 Ashby. 



I am delighted to be able to add a postscript to the effect that 

 though one fox undoubtedly went to ground in front of them in 

 Welton Park, news was brought almost simultaneously that their 

 run fox lay beaten in a turnip field behind them, and that they 

 were thus able to go back half a mile to pick him up without 

 difficulty. A good run is never so complete as when it finishes 

 with blood. 



CRICK AND KIL WORTH. 



The fairest area of the whole good Pytchley country is 

 undoubtedly that which comes within the scope of a Crick or 

 Lilbourne Wednesday — and it was this that they harried 

 (harvested, is a better term) on January 25th. The present 

 being the annual Rugby gala week, the choicest meets and 

 easy hours had been named by the three packs of the neighbour- 

 hood, so that all who came to dance might also hunt to the 

 best advantage. On Wednesday, then, the order of the day 

 was Catthorpe at 11.30 — and on a beautiful hunting morning — 

 a cool breeze blowing, for dancers to inhale and for all fox- 

 hunters to accept with gladness. The day began badly with 

 the chopping of a fox in Lilbourne Gorse. Then we trotted 

 some three miles, to Crick's famous Gorse ; and ranged up 

 alongside the covert in that state of subdued excitement that 

 belongs so specially to the trial of a small and noted covert, to 

 which memory already attaches many a hurried start many a 

 blissful gallop. It had been said there would be an enormous 

 field to-day. If this came true, it was certainly not evinced 

 beside Crick Covert ; for, as far as one could see, there were 

 not a hundred riders in the grass field wherein we were bidden 

 to wait. Hunting is assuredly not "going out of fashion," is 

 it ? Another term that meets the ear more frequently is 

 that " times don't run to it " — and this, I fear, more correctly 

 expresses the cause of a very apparent falling off in the strength 



