S6 HUNTING AND SPORTING NOTES. 



The Eadnorsliire, too, had a good run on New Year's 

 Day from Norton Manor, and its owner, Sir R. Green 

 Price, Bart., was there enjoying the fun on his cob, 

 riding after his eighty-third year, as the old story goes. 



I have to turn my back on Baschurch (Petton), but 

 this shall only be a pleasure deferred, as far as my 

 readers are concerned, for an eagle-eyed friend will hover 

 over that wide expanse of rough pastures and black 

 ditches, discerning everything to its minutest details. 



ELEVENTH WEEK, January 4th to the 9th. 



How much we are governed by local circumstances^ 

 and hence how hard it is to bring oneself to write of 

 hunting when all around wears a mantle of snow, and 

 King Frost reigns supreme ! Still I am in duty bound 

 to try. We left off with the first day of the New Year. 

 The next day brought better luck to the Shropshire than 

 they had experienced on Friday. Starting close to 

 where they left off, or ought to have left off, had 

 Thatcher followed his fox to his legitimate point the 

 previous evening, Besford Hill, was the first place of 

 attack. Here there was a fox that gave forth so little 

 scent as to be of no use in the way of sport. The Rub- 

 bishes produced one of a still worse sort that was soon 

 slain. Acton Eeynald Park, however, put a brighter 

 complexion on the prospects of the day. Here a good 

 fox was in waiting, and w^ent away over the wall and 

 across the road into the Rubbishes, through it and on 

 over the open, almost passing by the tempting haven of 

 Preston Springs. Entering it, however, on the Wem side, 

 he made but a short stay before quitting it at the same 

 point, and taking a capital line towards Wem. Just, 

 however, before reaching Shooter's Hill, he shot to the 

 left nearly to Yorton Station, then more to the left up 

 the hill past Clive, and at the back of the Grinshill 

 quarries to the Rubbishes, which were destined to shel- 

 ter him no more, and it was an expiring effort that took 

 him into Acton Reynald Park to die close to the happy 

 hunting grounds of Sir Vincent Corbet. It was a fast 



