42 FOX-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



severe, therefore hounds and horses to Hve with 

 them must possess a good pedigree. The chief 

 fences are stone walls, and formidable enough, 

 but with a good scent hounds can race over the 

 walls faster than most horses, jumping them 

 abreast without that stringing and toiling after 

 the leaders so prevalent in many countries. 

 It must not be supposed that hounds can race 

 every day over these wild hillsides, often enough 

 scent is so bad that rapid progress becomes 

 impossible ; but with a real scent and a straight 

 fox it requires a quick man on a fast horse to 

 keep well with hounds, for once you are away 

 from big woods the country is, generally speaking, 

 open and unpopulated. A very wet autumn is 

 required to make sure of scent and sport up to 

 Christmas ; on the other hand, there is often a 

 screaming scent under exactly opposite con- 

 ditions, and when the dust is flying in clouds 

 in the month of March. Stout hill foxes were 

 plentiful enough in the big woods of Withington 

 and Chedworth in the centre of the country, 

 as well as in the rough Cranham woodlands 

 towards the south side, and a wild Cotswold fox 

 once bustled in the woods will often go right away 

 over the hills, and is not an easy animal to catch. 

 However, the Cotswold country is not entirely 

 hill, the exception being a strip of vale in the 



