BREEDING OF HUNTERS. 275 



future, as well as Bat apian' s, and the hunting in- 

 terests will suffer accordingly. During his illnSss, 

 Augur might have been shown as " a frightful ex- 

 ample " and, oddly enough, when we were last in 

 his adopted Lincolnshire, we met with a pony in a 

 park, which had run wild so long that her coronets 

 seemed to have entirely merged in the hoofs. In 

 fact, she stood to all appearance on her fetlocks, and 

 the hoofs had become nothing more or less than long 

 strips of horn curled up, and exactly resembling a 

 Chinese boot. Several efforts had been made to pare 

 them into shape, but nature had had her own sweet 

 will too long, and would not be denied. 



The Julius Caesars, of which the late Sir Harry 

 Goodricke's Limner was one of the very best, were 

 very bad to beat over the Midland Counties, in the 

 days when " Frenchmen " and the multiplication of 

 covers had not begun to produce so many ringing 

 home-bred foxes. Sir Harry, who always rode rather 

 slow at his fences, except when he found a young 

 horse careless at timber, and in want of a fall over 

 something that would not break, liked Limner so 

 much, that he went to Mr. Lynes of Oxendon, from 

 whom he had purchased him for 200 guineas, at six 

 years old, and gave him a long price for the daoi ; 

 but, with the usual ill-luck of all fancy purchases, 

 she died very shortly after, during foaling. Limner 

 is still remembered in the Quorn Hunt, as being the 

 most perfect hunter that Sir Harry ever had in his 

 stud, and was always ridden in a plain snaffle. He 

 was a golden-coloured lengthy fifteen-three chesnut, 

 on short legs, immensely fast, and safe at his fences, 

 until a very foggy morning after a frost seemed to 

 make him a roarer, as if by magic. Owing to the 

 mist, Sir Harry's groom had not found his master 

 till after they had killed their first fox at the end of 

 a mile run. The hounds had just broken it up, 

 when Sir Harry said to a friend, ' ' Listen ! here 



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