CHANGES IN FOX-HUNTING 347 



starting, and those who have experience of Irish fairs 

 will understand that the condition of the streets 

 might be termed congested. My host allowed him- 

 self two hours, and we did it easily, with lots of time 

 to spare, overtaking horses and traps on their way 

 to the trysting-place at least two miles before we 

 reached it. Certainly a most comfortable means of 

 transit was that motor-car — so noiseless and so delight- 

 fully smooth. She rose the hills with a droning hum 

 like the buzz of a distant threshing machine, and 

 glided down them accompanied by the low, rhythmical 

 clink of machinery, but at times quite silently. 



Turning over the pages of an old diary, I see that 

 in the last week of March, 1866, I "drove to the meet 



on Mr. M 's coach. Most of the fellows on the drag 



wore hunting-caps. Three other coaches at the meet." 

 I suppose, being a youth at that time, I envied the 

 wearers of the hunting-caps the possession of those 

 sensible articles of headgear. It is true that my driver 

 of the motor-car the other day was similarly attired 

 as to his head, but being the M.F.H. that was a matter 

 of course. Who else wears a hunting-cap now ? — 

 unless, perchance, the Field Master (an excellent 

 custom, I think) — and who drives his coach to the 

 meet at the present day ? Not many folk, I fancy, 

 even on the Saxon side of St. George's Channel ! And 

 it is now some years since I saw a coach at a meet of 

 foxhounds in Ireland, though it was a common enough 

 sight at one time. Tempora mutantur ! 



The hunting-cap lingered longer on the brows of 

 sportsmen in Ireland than in England, despite the fact 

 that it was the fatal accident in Co. Kilkenny to Henry 



