228 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1863 



When Mr. Bird lived at Newton Solney in 1865, he, 

 in conjunction with Mr. A. 0. Worthington and Mr. 

 George Mitchell, purchased Lord Stanhope's harriers, with 

 which they had no end of fun. When he went to Barton 

 Hall in 1867 he started polo. The players were Lord 

 Harrington, Messrs. Walker (3), Bird (3), Ludham, Dudley 

 Fox, W. Fellowes, Captain Fowler Butler, Dr. Palmer, and 

 Mr. P. Burnott. The team was good enough to play 

 the Fourth and Fifth Dragoons, and to make a tie of it 

 in each match. Barton was a very sporting place in 

 those days, as many as nine pink coats sallying out of 

 a morning. From Barton, Mr. Bird migrated, in 1885, to 

 Orgreave Hall, where he soon had foxes in the hitherto 

 barren coverts by the simple process of discharging all 

 the keepers but one, and telling the latter that he did 

 not care about game, but foxes there must be, or " you 

 go." The Meynell hounds came there once during his 

 tenancy. From there he moved to Hound-hill, Marching- 

 ton, and finally left the Meynell country in 1896, after 

 forty years of good sport and good-fellowship, full of good- 

 will towards his neighbours, and of gratitude to successive 

 masters for their kindness to him. We miss the long, 

 lathy figure in the swallow-tail coat when hounds are 

 running, and wish we could see it in its accustomed place 

 as of yore. There is one custom of his which seems worthy 

 of notice. If a horse carried him well one season he never 

 parted with him, as he could not bear to think of a faithful 

 servant being reduced to a bit of hardship in his old age. 

 All his children follow in the footsteps of their father in 

 the art of equestrianism, and the second one, Harry, is 

 making a name for himself between the flags at Gibraltar. 

 The eldest son. Captain Bird, is still with us, living at 

 Nuttall House, Barton-under-Needwood, and so is his 

 daughter, Mrs. Dudley Fox, at Tutbury, a very finished 

 horsewoman. 



Mrs. Bird, though the mother of such a riding family, 

 did not ride herself, but she used to send capital accounts 

 of sport with the Meynell to the Burton Chronicle. 



