132 ROYAL ROCK BEAGLE HUNT. 



in business in Liverpool, may consider themselves singularly fortunate in 

 having such a country at their very doors, so easy of access that they may 

 spend a morning at their business, and have very good sport in the afternoon. 

 The author on one occasion left Liverpool by the 12-20 p.m. boat, and was 

 with the hounds in full cry at i-io p.m., just fifty minutes after leaving 

 Liverpool ; it could have been done in half-an-hour, by using the Mersey 

 Tunnel to Rock Ferry. 



Although Wirral is one of the wettest parts of the kingdom, it can boast 

 of no rivers of any importance, the only streams dignified by the name of 

 river being the Birket and the Fender. These are really no better than slug- 

 gish brooks, which in very few parts of their course offer insuperable obstacles 

 to the progress of the active beagler, although a goodly number of our fra- 

 ternity have been into the Fender between Prenton Bridge and Old Ford 

 Bridge. This part of the Fender has proved a more fatal trap to the Harriers 

 than to the Beaglers, as it certainly requires a fairly good water-jumper 

 properly to negotiate the leap. 



The source of the Birket (or Birken, which gives its name to Birken- 

 head), is found just below Caldy village, on the Frankby side, whence it flows 

 towards Newton and Meols, and onwards along the flat lands, parallel to the 

 Leasowe shore, to Wallasey Pool, where such water as it has to spare gets 

 into the Mersey through the Birkenhead Docks. When a good frost sets in 

 after an excess of wet weather, the overflow of the Birket, on the marsh land 

 about Meols, affords capital skating for any number of skaters who will take 

 the trouble to go so far afield. 



The tributaries of the Birket are the Greasby brook, joined by the 

 Arrow brook, and the Fender. Greasby brook rises near Irby village, passes 

 to the westward of Lby mill and Greasby to Saughall Massie, where it is 

 joined by Arrow brook (which, starting from the other side of Irby, passes 

 to the eastward of Lby mill hill and below Upton), and pours their united 

 streams into the Birket, somewhere about opposite the Hoylake end of Lea- 

 sowe embankment. The Fender has its source on the east side of Heswall 

 hill, near Pensby, and runs through that pretty vale called Fiddler's Folly, by 

 Barnston, and onwards between Landican and Prenton, under Noctorum and 

 Bidston hill, joining the Birket in the Bidston marshes. 



The only other stream of importance in our country is the Dibbinsdale, 

 which begins in a full ditch between Ledsham village and Ledsham station, 

 near which it passes under the railway, thence goes northwards between 

 Childer Thornton and Hooton station, re-crosses the railway at Fastham 

 Rake, receives the water from Raby Mere, and flows into the Mersey at 

 Bromborough Pool. All its tributary streams join it in the beautiful little 

 valley near Bromborough, called Dibbinsdale. The Clatterbridge brook, 

 coming from Storeton, meets a brook from Barnston (through Brimstage) at 



