/IDasters of tbe 3Dex>0)i anb Sornecset 411 



stag-hunters were more decorous or could take their 

 liquor better. 



The Aclands, the Bassets, the Fortescues, were all in 

 turn Masters of the Exmoor Stag-hounds, till in 1825 

 Mr Stucley Lucas of Baronstown, finding it hopeless to 

 continue a sport which for years had been on the wane, 

 sold his renowned pack of stag-hounds, the last of the 

 true stag-hounds of England, and it seemed as if the 

 chase of the wild deer on Exmoor had perished for ever. 

 Fitful attempts were made to revive the sport, but 

 poachers and deerstealers had almost exterminated the 

 deer, whilst the erection of fences and plantations had 

 spoiled the hunting-grounds. Then at last there came 

 a gleam of hope, and how it came I will let the Hon. 

 John Fortescue describe. 



' The sporting community in the neighbourhood of 

 Dulverton, having long felt that their country was not 

 sufficiently hunted, and being possessed of an itching 

 desire to have a pack of foxhounds which they could 

 call their own, in the spring of 1855 Mr Froude Bellew 

 (a nephew of the celebrated parson Froude) consented 

 to start a pack for their edification. Mr Bellew had 

 inherited from his uncle a beautiful and unequalled pack 

 of harriers, which up to this time he had himself hunted, 

 aided by the faithful Jack Babbage. The well-known 

 yellow pied pack, however, being rather on the small 

 side for fox-hunting, Mr Bellew in the month of May 

 purchased the pack belonging to Mr Horlock, a well- 

 known M.F.H., who was just giving up a subscription 

 pack in Cornwall. 



'This pack having arrived at Rhyll, Mr Bellew an- 

 nounced, on the 13th of May, that if the country ever 

 again thought it desirable to have a pack of stag-houncis 



