282 



LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



From grave to gay, from lively to severe, from poetry to prose, from fact 

 to fiction, may be only a step ; but from making a guess where to find 

 hounds with a second horse in the afternoon, to publicly advertising the 

 fact that at 3.30 the hounds will draw the Lonely Spinneys, is, I trust, 

 an unbridgeable abyss : otherwise we might expect to see somethmg hke 

 this in the precincts of Liverpool Street and the Bank : — 



Special edition. A special train will leave at 2.30 for Loughton Shaws, when the Essex 

 Hounds will run a special fox ; the double journey at single fares, a capital view to be obtained 

 from the company's line. 



Well, 3.30 did find us at Loughton Shaws, and the navvies on the line 

 saw all that I have to tell you, saw the httle terriers at work (for Loughton 

 Shaws are thick, thicker than any fox-hound will face), heard their sharp 





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Luffman's Earths, Epping Forest 



" y^P) yaP'" ^s they drove their fox out to the opposite covert, and witnessed 

 our disappointment, as with open country before him this dog fox fell a 

 victim to his own craven heart. 



Starting with the adniission that tlie hounds have been out on 102 

 hunting days, have been stopped by frost nine days, and have killed thirty- 

 six brace, and run another twenty brace to ground, I would remark that 

 the following brief notes, culled from the leaves of a hunting diary, only 

 represent some of the best days in the Monday and Wednesday coimtry. 

 Unfortunately, I have no record of the Friday country, and very little, 

 indeed, of the Saturday, but that the Fridays and Saturdays were 

 productive of many equally good, if not better, ones can hardly be 

 controverted. 



Owing to the hard state of the ground, six weeks of the time alloted 

 to cub-hunting slipped away without a run worth speaking of taking place, 



