74 HUNTING AND SPOBTING NOTES, 



occasion an unusual crowd of sportsmen came from far 

 and wide ; at least two hundred sat down to breakfast,. 

 and nearly four hundred mustered in the field. The run- 

 from Goose Hill was so remarkable that it deserves to be 

 chronicled in the annals of Worcestershire hunting. I 

 have been fortunate in obtaining a thoroughl}^ reliable,, 

 and in every way correct account of it from end to end, . 

 for w^hich I plead no excuse in giving in the author's 

 own words. It is no exaggeration to say that not a tithe 

 of the starters saw^ the end, or that the Crowle Brook 

 never had so many winter bathers in its muddy waters- 

 wathin living memory. Nor has the old Crowde steeple- 

 chase course been the scene of such genuine fun for many 

 a long year. How proud Mr. Ames must feel over this ever 

 memorable Hindlip day ! '' Friday, February 19th, the 

 Worcestershire Hounds met at Hindlip. A vast crowd 

 assembled to greet Lord Hindlip. The small coverts in 

 the park contained no fox, so a move was made to Oakley 

 Wood, which was also blank, and Hazlewood was equally 

 unfortunate. Goosehill next claimed attention, and 

 though the hounds were twice in it on the 15th, two 

 foxes were on foot as soon as the hounds entered this 

 fine wood, of which Mr. Bearcroft may be as proud as of 

 his beautiful old hall of the seventeenth century. Both 

 foxes broke on the Hanbury side. The hounds ran to 

 the Church la>urels, then round the north side of the park, 

 crossing at the end of the deer park, and disturbing 

 another fox in the belt (Hanbury is full of foxes. ) Denton 

 went on with the fox he had been running all the time,, 

 but several couples of hounds followed the lately-disturbed 

 fox. The hunted fox ran over Hunting-trap Farm, leaving 

 Goosehill close on his left, straight to the Trenches, 

 through it, and ran the beautiful grass meadows on the 

 other side of Crowle Brook to below Crowle Thrift, where 

 he crossed but did not go to the Thrift, preferring to go • 

 down wind, thus leaving Churchill Wood close on the 

 left, he went to Spetchley station, tlipn straight on down 

 the flat for Botany Bay, when a fresh fox jumped up,, 

 some distance behind the pack, who were too intent upon 

 the fox before them to notice all the shouting from the 

 railway and elsewhere after the fresh fox. The hunted 

 fox held on as if for the turnpike road for Stoulton, but 



