84 THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



was unable to be present, he was in the habit of dele- 

 gating his official duties to some important member of 

 the hunt, and, to put the case briefly, his duties in the 

 actual hunting field were often the least important 

 and most easily achieved of all the responsibilities of 

 the mastership. 



But in these days matters are very different in a 

 great number of the most important countries. There 

 are some out-of-the-way, provincial hunts in which 

 there has been little change, and where things are 

 carried on much as they were a generation or two 

 ago. But these hunts are now few and far between, and 

 are very quickly disappearing altogether. The multi- 

 plication of railways, the increase in the population, 

 the extension of the provincial, and even the small 

 country towns, to say nothing of the many com- 

 paratively new industrial districts which have of late 

 years come into being, have greatly altered the face 

 of the country generally, and only in the wildest parts 

 has there been little increase in the size of the fields, 

 or alteration in the conditions under which hunting is 

 carried on. 



It must be understood, then, that in discussing the 

 lines of conduct pursued by the average master and 

 the average field, the remote country hunts are not 

 being taken greatly into consideration. As a matter 

 of course many lines of conduct must apply to fox- 

 hunting generally, but what we are about to say is 

 called forth by the altered conditions of the sport, 

 which have to a great extent involved altered relations 

 between the master and his field, and have, in many 

 countries, caused the office of master to be a more 

 difficult task than it formerly was. 



And as regards change it may safely be said that in 



