204 RECORDS OF THE CHASE 



fresh my memory that the weather on both days was 

 remarkably boisterous. Foster had been huntsman to 

 Lord Foley's hounds in Worcestershire, previously to 

 his engagement with Mr. Villebois, and his talent was 

 highly appreciated. When in Hampshire, of late years, 

 he got a good deal upon the telegraph system, for 

 which the open nature of the country is somewhat 

 seductive. By sending a whipper-in forward to view 

 the foxes as they pass from covert to covert a vast deal 

 of assistance may be given to hounds, but it is not a 

 workmanlike method of hunting them. 



Having kept them seven years, Major Barrett gave 

 the hounds up to Mr. Onslow, when the members of the 

 hunt built new kennels at Ropley, to supply the place 

 of those which had heretofore been occupied for many 

 years at Arms worth, and William Cox was engaged as 

 huntsman. At this period the Hursley country was 

 portioned off and entered upon by Mr. Cockburn, a 

 very zealous sportsman from Devonshire. Mr. Onslow 

 only kept the H. H. a short time, when Captain 

 Haworth became the master and retained Cox in his 

 situation. 



Lord Gifford succeeded in 1847, bringing with him a 

 pack of hounds, with which he had been showing a vast 

 deal of sport in Herefordshire. These, in conjunction 

 with the pack left by his predecessor, formed a very 

 powerful body; and many a good run did they show. 

 Lord Gifford's quickness and determination shone con- 

 spicuously; and I shall ever remember a run on the 

 18th of February, 1850, when they met at Lasham, and 

 found in the wood, from whence they went away at a 

 tremendous pace to Weston Common, where they 

 crossed the line of a fresh fox, and the hounds divided. 

 This being instantly noticed by Lord Gifford and Grant 

 (ever alive to his lordship's horn), the hounds that had 

 got upon the fresh fox were immediately stopped, the 

 body of the pack and their noble master holding on 

 with their hun^td fox by Blounce's Farm, over Swain's 

 Hill nearly U Crondall, and killed between Famham 



