144 NIMRO&S NORTHERN TO UR. 



lady, and contained the agreeable intimation, that he should be 

 happy to show me his hounds, and mount me naming the 

 following Saturday, as a fair fixture and a sure find ; and saying 

 that a horse should be at the cover for me. On the following 

 day then Friday, December 5th I took my departure for 

 Edinburgh, accompanied by Captain Keith, and took up my 

 abode at Douglas's Hotel in St. Andrew's Square the Fenton's 

 of Edinburgh. This I did at the suggestion of Lord Kintore, 

 who, knowing I should be only a few days in the metropolis 

 for these swell hotels, as John Warde said of the Pytchley-hunt 

 dinners, when he hunted Northamptonshire, are " all very well 

 but the reckoning" wished me to have a taste of this house, 

 which he assured me is the best he ever broke bread in, in any 

 part of the world, and I can fully confirm his encomium. 



I had not been long in Edinburgh before I called upon Messrs. 

 Blackwood, the celebrated publishers of George Street, and 

 arrived at a lucky moment, for in ten minutes Professor Wilson 

 made his appearance, and requested to be introduced to me. 

 This was followed, instanter, by an invitation to dinner ; in two 

 hours' time I had my feet under his mahogany, and the very 

 name of my host is a sufficient voucher for a most agreeable 

 evening. We talked of everything but moral philosophy, of 

 which Mr. Wilson is professor ; but as that celebrated naturalist 

 Mr. James Wilson, the Professor's brother, was one of the party, 

 natural philosophy ', which includes fox-hunting, was a frequent 

 topic. "I have been in at more deaths this year, than you will 

 be in at," said this well-known entomologist to me, facetiously ; 

 " I have killed one hundred and sixty-four different kinds of 

 beetles." " Indeed !" I replied, " I was not aware there were so 

 many to be found." (Ray only reckons one hundred and fifty- 

 four.) And I wonder how many butterflies you have impaled, 

 thought I, quietly within myself ! But I rather like to hear of 

 these scientific tormentors of insect life ; they form somewhat of 

 a set off against the charge of cruelty we fox-hunters labour under, 

 in the torments we inflict upon the animal world. Shakespeare 

 says, 



" The poor beetle that we tread upon, 

 In corporal suffrance feels a pang as great 

 As when a giant dies !" 



I am not able to say, exactly, how long the Linlithgow hounds 

 have been established, but I believe about fifteen years. They 

 are in the hands of a good man named Scott commonly called 

 " old Scott" particularly good, I was given to understand, in 



