AND STIELINGSHIEE HUNT 



and across the Linlithgow and Bo'ness road, straight 

 to Stobbiehohn covert on the banks of the Avon, to 

 ground in the main earth, — six miles from Hopetoun 

 as the crow flies and nearly eleven in all.^ This 

 was the best day of the season — the second of the 

 Messrs Ushers' mastership — for a frost of some five 

 weeks' duration, in which all the appointments made 

 had to be given up, followed, and the spring hunting 

 brought forth no run equal to that from Hopetoun 

 to Stobbieholm, although, on the 20th of February 

 there was a good hunt from Longmuir to Clifton- 

 hall in which hounds worked well, and Cotesworth 

 displayed to the full his ability as a huntsman in 

 helping them to unravel the line through a difficult 

 country. 



In April 1896, Mr W. Horn Henderson tendered 

 his resignation as honorary treasurer and Mr J. G. 

 B, Henderson, his eldest son, was appointed in his 

 stead ; ^ while a year later, Mr Falconar-Stewart, 

 who had acted as honorary secretary for thirteen 

 seasons, intimated his retirement,^ and was suc- 

 ceeded by the late Mr E. B. Meldrum, Dechmont.* 

 Mr Falconar-Stewart had first hunted with the 

 pack in the year 1850, when only just old enough 

 to sit on a pony ; but school life, followed by a long 

 sojourn abroad, soon took the place of these early 

 hunting days, and for many years he saw nothing 

 of hounds. When, however, he returned to this 

 country in 1878, and made Binny his home, he not 



1 ' The Field ' aud ' Land and Water,' 9th January 1897. 



2 Minute-book, vol. ii. p. 153. » Ibid., p. 169. " Ibid., p. 171. 



303 



