ii8 THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



prominent sport of the district, but we have actually 

 heard of a master who was requested to change his 

 Boxing Day meet because a certain magnate — not a 

 hunting man, but a good preserver of foxes — wanted to 

 shoot. The master wrote that he thought he could not 

 change the meet, because it was a fixture of fifty years' 

 standing, and the whole countryside would be up in 

 arms : but he went on to say that from the meet he 

 would take hounds into quite another district, and that 

 the coverts in question would not be interfered with. 

 The magnate then realised what he had not thought of 

 before, viz. that his shoot was likely to interfere with 

 the sport of the occasionals who came out on Boxing 

 Day, and he at once sent a message to the master to 

 the effect that he had forgotten all about Boxing Day, 

 and that he would postpone his sport for a week. 



HORSEMANSHIP 



In regard to manners and conduct in the field some 

 few well-recognised precepts may be set down, but 

 it must be understood that in this particular case we 

 are addressing ourselves not to hunting men and 

 women of experience who know quite as much about 

 the sport as we do, but to people of little or no ex- 

 perience. There are always men and women who 

 desire to hunt, but who have not been in the way of 

 seeing any sport. To such it may be pointed out that 

 a certain proficiency in the saddle is absolutely neces- 

 sary, and that to go out hunting before this has been 

 attained is a most rash and injudicious proceeding. It 

 is not all men and women who are born riders, but the 

 average English man or woman who wishes to hunt 



