I50 THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



fairly high estate to very moderate efficiency. In proof 

 of this we may mention two cases which we have lately 

 noticed in different parts of the country. One southern 

 pack we saw very frequently in the very early seventies. 

 About twenty couples of hounds were at the kennels. 

 The stables never contained more than six or seven 

 horses, including those of the master, who was also 

 his own huntsman. Hounds were out on two days of 

 the week, and the fields used to average from eight 

 or ten to fifteen or twenty on the most thinly-populated 

 side of the country, and from five-and-twenty to forty 

 on the other side, which extended to a fashionable 

 inland watering-place, though then never spoken of as 

 a hunting centre. In spite of this small establish- 

 ment the country was pretty good, and the sport very 

 good, and almost immediately after the date named 

 the conditions, as distinguished from the sport, began 

 to improve. Now in this particular country hounds 

 are out on four, and sometimes on five, days a week, 

 there are fifty couples of hounds at the kennels, and 

 about thirty horses at the hunt stables, the subscription 

 has been more than doubled, and the country has 

 acquired so good a reputation that the mastership of 

 the pack is eagerly sought, and the letting value of 

 houses and stabling has (we are told) greatly increased. 

 Yet the country (not being a populous one) has under- 

 gone little change, and though the sport is spoken of, 

 and written of, as very good, it is probably no better 

 than it was five-and-thirty years ago. 



Another case is that of a semi-private pack, which 

 has greatly changed as to its style of hunting, and 

 its following. Thirty years ago the master and two 

 servants had a horse apiece for two days a week, 

 and a following so small that it often did not 



