CHANGES IN FOX-HUNTING 351 



veloped his neck in a blue or blue bird's-eye scarf 

 while some of the ancients tied theirs in a bow, and 

 to this fashion Mr. T. C. Garth held till the end of 

 his fifty years' mastership in 1902. The blue bird's-eye 

 with a scarlet coat is now as extinct as the velvet 

 cap. The Crimean War and its hardships, it is said, 

 did away with much of the very tight and shiny 

 species of dandyism in the hunting-field and else- 

 where. Many of our heroes wore beards when they 

 returned from the shores of the Black Sea ; and, 

 retiring from the Service after the war, remained 

 unshorn ever afterwards, to the great wrath and 

 disgust of an elder generation, who would suffer no 

 growth on the face but what Brother Jonathan terms 

 a " side-whisker," and had a prejudice against wearing 

 that of any length. " It's a strange thing," I once 

 heard one of the old school remark, "that Johnny 

 Osborne can go and win races with all that hair on 



his face. I wish to G d he'd cut it off ! " 



In provincial countries, certainly, it was a common 

 thing to wear brown cord breeches with a red coat, 

 but, though I regret to learn that there has been a 

 considerable increase in the number of " Rat-catchers " 

 since the Boer War, I have only seen one instance 

 of khaki-coloured legs being thrust into top-boots — a 

 sensible practice enough, one which is most com- 

 fortable, and was common long ago. Scarlet single- 

 breasted coat, brown Bedford cords, mahogany- 

 coloured top-boots, and a hunting-cap : such was the 

 kit of many a well-known sportsman when I first 

 went hunting — the dress, in fact, of many huntsmen 

 and hunt servants of the present day. Leathers had 



