THE FIELD iii 



remains in force, and to give an example, in the Tyne- 

 dale country there are many gorse and other coverts, 

 the rent of which is paid by the various members of the 

 Tynedale Hunt Club, the amounts varying from £2, to 

 about ;6^20 per annum, according to the size of the 

 coverts. As a rule these Tynedale gorses are located 

 in an open country, and one can always see a board, 

 placed on a ten-foot post in a prominent position, 

 which at first glance a stranger would take to be an 

 ordinary trespass notice, but which when examined 

 will be found to bear the notice that "This covert is 

 the property of the Tynedale Hunt Club." 



Poultry and damage claims are, broadly speaking, the 

 most serious "extra" which members of a hunt have 

 now to find. In some places the covert-rent charges 

 are high too, but in other districts these have become 

 smaller than they used to be, simply because masters 

 of hounds, individual members of hunts, and syndicates 

 of hunting men have taken shooting primarily with a 

 view to maintaining a fair head of foxes. This taking 

 of shooting by the hunting section of the community 

 has done an extraordinary amount of good in some 

 countries, and in one or two cases it has been the 

 actual saving of the country. 



In one instance we have a vivid recollection of having 

 five consecutive days with a pack of hounds, during 

 which exactly two foxes were found. As it happened 

 both were wild ones, and whilst one gave a fast gallop 

 of about forty minutes, the other was hunted for over 

 two hours, and not killed until a very big tract of 

 country had been covered. But the outlook seemed 

 to be miserable in the extreme, for the season was 

 nearly over, and there seemed, as far as we could 

 judge, to be no vixens anywhere. We were staying 



