I20 CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 



a pack of staghounds into the field ; and I acted as 

 treasurer to the hunt. True, the hounds were far 

 from what they should have been, but a pack, as 

 every sportsman knows, cannot be formed in a day, 

 I must mention here the kind assistance rendered 

 by Mr Charles Davis, the veteran huntsman of Her 

 Majesty's staghounds, who supplied us with six 

 couples of hounds, and with other drafts, the pack 

 was set on foot and christened the ' Devon and 

 Somerset Staghounds' ; and, John Dale holding the 

 office of prime minister, we took the field in the 

 autumn of 1837, the hounds being under the manage- 

 ment of a Committee. Thus things continued until 

 1 84 1, at which time the difference between sub- 

 scriptions on paper and those paid down had become 

 lamentably apparent ; and when at a meeting, which 

 took place at Dulverton in June 1841, the accounts 

 were audited, a balance of ^531 odd appeared to be 

 due to the treasurer. At this meeting the late 

 Lord Portsmouth, then the Hon. Newton Fellowes, 

 presided; and in the spring of 1842, in a con- 

 versation I then had with him, in which I pointed out 

 the impossibility of continuing the existing establish- 

 ment with a diminished subscription list, he observed, 

 * So you want a stop-gap do you ? Well, I stopped 

 the gap once in North Devon ' (in allusion to his 



