262 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



contain 340,000 acres of arable land, and appeared to mo to be the most 

 roomy enclosed county, if such an expression may be allowed me, that 

 I hunted over in Scotland. It has been regularly hunted by fox-hounds 

 about eighty years. Lord Kintore hunted it twice, and the renowned Cap- 

 tain Barclay of Ury once ; and it is from their experience I speak as much 

 as from my own. It has an advantage over Fife in the nature of the stone 

 with which the walls are built, which seldom lacerates, and, generally 

 speaking, it holds a fair scent — I may perhaps say more than an average 

 scent for a ploughed country, which the greater portion of the enclosed 

 part of it is. This may in part be accounted for by the fact, that, by 

 the universal law of nature, all mountainous countries, like Scotland, 

 accumulate much moisture, so that the surface of the fallows do not become 

 arid and scentless, as they do in the flatter but exposed countries of England, 

 during the prevalence of high and cold winds. But all ** walled coun- 

 tries," as they are called, are objectionable, it being injurious to hounds 

 to jump off from them, which they do with great violence when their fox 

 is sinking before them — the time of all others when they are less able to 

 withstand the force of the shock they sustain by it. It is true there are 

 many — perhaps too many — larg-e woods in Forfarshire, but there are 

 whin covers in it that would do credit to any shire. 



It is scarcely necessary to observe, that Mr. Dalyell at this time, as 

 at the present, hunted his hounds himself, assisted in the kennel as well 

 as in the field by John Skinner, his first whipper-in, a name very well 

 known in the fox-hunting world. There are three brothers, all at 

 present with hounds, and the father of them, brought up by the late 

 Mr. Meynell at Quorn, was fifty-five years with fox-hounds, without 

 once being absent from them, with the exception of the period of nine- 

 teen weeks, when he was confined to hiti btd by a fall. One of his sons 



