26 Transition from hare to fox. 



country, and also Fighting Cocks, so that they could hunt the 

 nobler quarry. So the harriers became transformed into fox- 

 hounds, and neither Lord Darlington nor his favourite bit of 

 country was disturbed. Soon after this the newly-formed 

 Hurworth added the country between Crathorne and Yarm, 

 which used to be hunted by the Cleveland, and also by Mr. 

 Ralph Lambton, in the early part of his career. The Hurworth 

 also ventured further into the Cleveland domains in these pre- 

 boundary days, as witness the following extract from a speech 

 made by Mr. John Andrew, at the Cleveland Hunt dinner, in 

 1843: 



" I was quite astonished that we did as well this season as 

 the last, as I feared a scarcity of foxes. We have had some 

 excellent sport, and in six days running we killed twelve foxes. 

 It is well known that the Hurworth Hounds hunted this 

 country several weeks and never killed a fox." 



I quote the foregoing from Sir A. E. Pease's book on The 

 Cleveland Hounds, and in answer to an enquiry. Sir Alfred 

 wrote to me : "The Roxby and Cleveland, I fancy, seldom 

 left the hills, and hunted much as do the Bilsdale now. The 

 Chaloners had a pack of hounds at Guisborough ; the Turners 

 had one at Kirkleatham, though perhaps not exactly contem- 

 porary. The Duke of Cleveland, and Lord Darlington before 

 him, went almost anywhere in the North Riding at one time." 



I was permitted to go through the old Wilkinson diaries, 

 and found the first entries had reference to hare hunting and 

 fox hunting, till 1799, when the quest of the hare was evidently 

 given up. The expenses of the hunt immediately began to 

 increase, for heretofore their real quarry had been hare, and 

 they had only hunted (we imagine) bagged foxes, and others 

 they came across by accident. There is no record of earth- 



