BREEDING OF HUNTERS. 311 



crack home-bred Hampshire horses at present are 

 decidedly the Safeguards and the Bowstrings. " Et- 

 wall's old horse/' as he is always called, is quite a 

 county hero, and returned some three or four seasons 

 ago to his Longstock quarters. Hence a second 

 series of big fifteen-three, weight-carrying, dark 

 chesnut hunters, with white blazes and remarkably 

 iine tempers in the field, are coming forward. Safe- 

 guarjl himself is quite blind, but his stock have not 

 that fatal heritage. The Bowstrings, which are now 

 about five or six, are much of the same stamp dark 

 chesnuts, but more whole-coloured than the .Safe- 

 guards, and there are a great number of them in the 

 Stpckbridge district. It is said, however, that he is 

 going to leave it, and that he has just been sold into 

 Devonshire for 300 guineas. 



It is only lately that the farmers of Suffolk have 

 bred from thorough-bred horses to any extent ; and 

 when the late ' " Squire Jenny," as he was always 

 called, brought St. Hubert from Newmarket (where 

 they principally hunt on retired racers), about thirty 

 years ago, they would hardly look at him, much 

 more use him. However, after seeing him hunted 

 some seasons with The Squire's " merry harriers/' 

 they began to think better of him. He was a chesnut 

 horse, by Williamson's Ditto out of Mockbird's dam, 

 and got some famous hunters, with fine size, espe- 

 cially good shoulders, and deep ribs, but rather in- 

 clined to have long lop-eared heads. The best mares 

 in the Suffolk breeders 3 hands at present are his 

 daughters, who, like himself, were never tired in the 

 longest day. St. Hubert, who died in 1842, was not 

 at all unlike Hat apian, and may be described as a 

 strong horse, with a rather straight and low-put-on 

 fore-end, but with the best of shoulders behind it ; 

 he went in a low, striding, swinging sort of way, 

 not pleasing to the dealer's fancy, but good action 

 for a hunter nevertheless. About 1842 Lord 



