254 FOX-HUNTING TYPES 



residents by the weight of metal they carry. But in 

 certain other counties, known well to hunting men, 

 the cult of the chase predominates ; hunting-boxes are 

 snapped up as soon as built, and are occupied from the 

 first fall of the leaf till the chime of Easter bells is 

 heard by a crowd of folk some of whom are the very 

 best and keenest of sportsmen, but many others who 

 have no claim whatever to be considered worthy of 

 the name, but who are simply carrying out part of 

 a yearly programme which compels them to be so 

 many weeks in London, so many more in Scotland, 

 and to hunt in some fashionable locality during the 

 winter. 



Four years ago I paid a delightful visit to the West 

 of England to hunt with the Devon and Somerset 

 Staghounds. My only previous visit had been during 

 the mastership of Mr. Mordaunt Fenwick Bisset, with 

 whom I stayed when a boy. At that time, I should 

 say, the average field numbered between twenty and 

 forty ; but four years ago — well ! it is most difficult 

 to compute the numbers of a field with the Devon 

 and Somerset nowadays owing to the country they 

 are spread about in, but we know it has become a 

 matter of hundreds. One used to be filled with amaze- 

 ment at the remarks heard about the sport, and I 

 feel quite certain that fully one-half the folk who 

 came " a-hunting the wild deer " had not the most 

 distant idea what was going on during two-thirds of 

 the time they were out. So long as the weather was 

 fine, however, they all had a delightful outing — "a 

 picnic on horseback among the heather," some one 

 described it ; nor were snowy tablecloths, ice pails, 



