66 HUNTING AND SPORTING NOTES. 



we have some slow hunting into the Farm Wood. In the 

 meantime a couple-and-a-half of hounds have brought 

 another fox by another route to meet ns, and I think our 

 hunted fox's life is spared, as we join forces after the new 

 •comer. It is serious work for the horses, as on we go 

 back through the Willey Coverts and down towards 

 Presteign, skirting the cemetery, right into Boullibrooke 

 grounds, through the stableyard, and on to Norton Mill, 

 then right handed over the road into the j^ark at Norton, 

 ■where he keeps the lower ground until at the Ackhill end 

 !he turns up to the Long Wood, and it is a race for life by 

 the Old Manor House, and, over on the new road above the 

 Moors, to ground in a rabbit hole, just in front of them. 

 It is half -past five, and we have been running hard since 

 half- past two. The hounds deserve him, and by six 

 •o'clock they have him — thus winding up the most si:)orting 

 :and enjoyable day possible, as it should be, with legitimate 

 Wood. To say that Borderer was charmed with the way 

 hounds did their work is not doing justice to his feelings. 

 He, once more for the one -hundredth time, reiterates his 

 •opinion that there is nothing in the hound creation to 

 beat a judicious cross of the high-bred English foxhound 

 with the true and equally pure-bred Welsh hound — well 

 ikennelled and well disciplined " they lick creation" in the 

 ;shape of foxdom. Why more M.F.H's, do not try to cross 

 is more than I can understand, seeing how many packs 

 nowadays suffer from lack of nose, as well as tongue and 

 drive. There are few packs that have been brought to 

 such a state of perfection in this respect, thanks to the 

 untiring devotion of Colonel Price for the last fifteen 

 years, than have the Radnorshire and West Hereford. 



Nearer home the sun shone with almost summer 

 brightness on the Shropshire at the fifth milestone on the 

 Baschurch Road. Business did not begin very quickly, 

 in expectancy of the Master's coming. Fitz Coppice held 

 a fox, which the field appeared to think had gone away 

 on the Walford side long before he had any thoughts of 

 doing so, and several fences were unnecessarily jumped. 

 AH he really did was to dudge back to the church, and 

 go to ground near the river. A brace in the Shelf yielded 

 liardly any fun. There was a fox in Hencote Pool that 



