346 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



the most wonderful feats of endurance performed by 

 the foxes of the' Lake Country, when hunting with the 

 Coniston and Blencathra packs. Be it remembered, 

 however, that, being on foot, men cannot see what 

 hounds really do with these packs. Moreover, a 

 score of years have elapsed since I hunted there. 



Exmoor, Dartmoor, and Wales too can show fine 

 and enduring foxes. Yet I think, and I hope it is not 

 natural partiality that prompts the thought, that in no 

 other English county can there be found tougher, 

 wilier, and more enduring specimens of the fox 

 tribe than in my native county of Monmouthshire. 



Let me hasten to say that I do not desire to base 

 this conclusion on the wonderful run which is described 

 in the " New Sporting Magazine" for 1821. This 

 fox, for the writer never hints at the idea of a change, 

 was found in the great covert of Wentwood (the old 

 Forest of Gwent), and, after running over the greatest 

 part of the present Parliamentary Division of South 

 Monmouthshire, crossed the Wye into Gloucestershire 

 near Tintern, and ran nearly to Lydney-on-Severn, 

 whence he turned back homewards again, but was 

 pulled down at Woolaston five hours and twenty 

 minutes from the find. The writer concludes by re- 

 marking that only some half-a-dozen sportsmen were 

 in at the death, and of these, not all started from 

 Wentwood. The italics are mine. As the spot where 

 the fox crossed the river was down one precipice and up 

 another, with a tidal river between, half-a-dozen miles 

 from a bridge, I should imagine they did not. 



My memory from childhood and the diaries of my 



