FOX-HUNTING. 425 



am not at this moment sufficiently well posted to say, great 

 tracks were fresh planted with oak and pine, and fences were 

 run up (palisading and iron hooping) to protect the young trees 

 from the forest ponies and the " extirpated " deer. Thus 

 the heart of the Forest, especially within half a dozen miles of 

 Lyndhurst, is chiefly taken up with these Inclosures ; and most 

 of this lower land has assumed a character more like the pine 

 woods of Western America than the old English forest of beech 

 and oak. 



It was in this very woodland country that the New Forest 

 hounds hunted on Tuesday, April 21 ; it was on upland moor and 

 heather that Mr. Mills' foxhounds were mainly at work on 

 Wednesday the days on which it was my privilege to see them 

 and to reap right good reward for my journey. To my mind 

 such surroundings as those of forest scenery unhindered by fear 

 of harm to crop or damage to stock, and leading to no thought 

 offence-breaking or fence avoiding are far more in keeping 

 with spring hunting than anything we can obtain in the suffer- 

 ance districts. The ordinary woodlands of a cultivated country 

 answer the same purpose, while you are within them. But at 

 any moment you may be out when you in all probability find 

 that there is no scent to hunt a fox, and that it is far too hard 

 to ride after him if there were. With shelter within and 

 heather without, you have a far better chance. There is likely 

 to be moisture enough for both fox and horse, and hounds can 

 generally run gaily. 



For the last week there had been a great scent in the New 

 Forest. On Monday the staghounds had run their fallow buck 

 for more than an hour (the first twenty-five minutes racing pace) 

 and killed him, without help throughout while on both the 

 following days the foxhounds went like wildfire. After the 

 recent rain you could gallop along every ride and there are so 

 many of them that you need never be wide of hounds, while the 

 undergrowth is seldom enough to hide them from view. Outside 

 the said "Inclosures" you may usually gallop the track of 

 hounds ; and but for the fear of bog and morass that come across 



