HUNTING AND Sl'OKTIXG NOTES 



IN 



THE WEST MIDLANDS. 



FIRST WEEK, October 26th to 31st. 



How soon November slips round again, and how as^ 

 each year succeeds another we look forward more or 

 less keenly to the opening hunting season. In fulfilment 

 of my promise to give the readers of Eddoioes's once 

 again a few notes of sport in Shropshire, I gladly take up 

 my pen — first of all thanking the many good friends who 

 have purchased my sporting notes of 1884 and 1885^ 

 and expressed kindly criticisms upon them. I can 

 answer for my young artist's ability to improve his 

 handicraft, but, perha^^s, with Borderer the reverse 

 is the case, for these bad times and other hard work 

 will keep him more out of the field than his inclinations 

 would have him do. This season opens very differently 

 to last year, for instead of having a very dry autumn we 

 have lately been blessed with a good steady downpour, 

 which has filled our rivers, brooks, ditches, and 

 furrows, laid low the leaves, and made the opening 

 days this week hopeful in every way of scent and 

 sport. Foxes undoubtedly have bred more freely than 

 usual, as there is hardly a pack in the United Kingdom 

 that does not say that foxes are plentiful, so that^ 



