142 O'er Crag and Torrent 



Thursday was the day which had been 

 arranged to shoot the home woods, and 

 it is with a description of the sport we 

 then had that I will endeavour to describe, 

 and I hope interest my readers. 



We were six guns altogether, each with a 

 louder and second gun. The first beat was 

 a wood of about 150 or 200 acres, almost in 

 the shape of a new moon well advanced in 

 its first quarter ; the beaters commenced at 

 one horn and terminated at the other, which 

 was made "the hot corner." A considerable 

 portion of the wood consisted of high oak 

 and fir trees. Towards the middle or widest 

 part of the covert, however, there was a wide 

 patch of fifty or sixty acres which had been 

 cleared of heavy timber some two years 

 previously, but it was covered with holly- 

 bushes and dwarf or copse oak, and beyond 

 this patch, forming the other horn of the 

 wood, there were high oak, fir, and larch 



