AND THEIR MANAGEMENT 183 



I have never seen a covert entirely composed of 

 privet, but I liave been told that in suitable soil it 

 forms an excellent shelter, and affords capital dry- 

 lying. Where the surface of the ground is uneven 

 and laurels can be " laid " over pit-like depressions 

 in the land, they make a lasting and most excellent 

 covert, and only require occasional clipping when 

 they grow high to make them furnish at the 

 bottom. 



To those whose lot is cast in some favoured grass 

 countries, where a seven-acre spinney is considered 

 a wood, the sight of such sylvan expanses as Salsey 

 Forest, or the Badminton Lower Woods, brings 

 dismay. But let them go and see how the Grafton 

 hounds can rattle out the former stronghold, and 

 how the Duke and his pack can make the foxes in 

 the latter cry Capevi, as old Jorrocks has it, and they 

 will confess to having witnessed work both quick 

 and beautiful. 



To the minds of some sportsmen, even in these 

 days, there is a certain spice of artificiality about 

 the neatly enclosed and carefully planted square of 

 gorse, so dear to the galloping division, and so 

 suggestive of the quick find and breathless five-and- 

 twenty minutes. I confess my own leaning for the 

 methods of Mr. Coryton and his hounds dragging 

 up through the heather to a regular Dartmoor 

 "Hector." There is no doubt that a wild woodland 

 is the place of all others wherein to view and admire 

 the " fierce intelligence " of the pack as they examine 

 each likely haunt, and the very sound of their busy 

 feet among the dead leaves, and the snuffing of 



