10 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



cords, whether they be snowy white or dingy as a London fog. 

 One point they are nearly all tenacious of, however, is that 

 every prominent member of the hunt, unless he happen to be a 

 parson, should appear in " pink " as a sign of respect to the 

 Master. But it need not be the pink of perfection, and no matter 

 how much the coat may be empurpled by weather stains, if in 

 the original colour it conformed to regulation as by custom 

 established. The least fastidious man in other details of personal 

 adornment is often the most scrupulous in his observance of the 

 respect due to the M. F. H. in this particular, and intolerant of 

 any departure from it. Farmers, who still form a large proportion 

 of fox-hunters in unfashionable countries, are not supposed to 

 dress for the part. They may wear whatsoever taste dictates, 

 though none of them would care to appear in the colour that 

 is accepted as a badge of hunt-membership. The Meltonian 

 is less punctilious about the sportsmanlike correctness of his 

 costume than its style and finish, while the "provincial" exactly 

 reverses these standards. In his opinion a man who, though 

 entitled to wear the hunt buttons, comes out in a stable jacket, 

 would not show a proper sense of the .fitness of things ; but 

 whether the scarlet coat be old or new, the breeches immaculate, 

 or the boots wrinkled like a Magyar's, he might not take the 

 trouble to note. Costume, by whatever canons regulated, is, 

 however, an untrustworthy indication of a sportsman's character- 

 istics. Fox-hunters, like the horses they ride, go well in all 

 shapes, and it is never safe to generalize, as Mr. Bromley 

 Davenport did when he " held the swell provincial lower than 

 the Melton muff." The wider sympathies and more varied 

 experiences of Whyte Melville led him to say of the many 



