438 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



thing he liked best. This, however, was of rare occurrence, as 

 the foxes used to breed in the morasses among the alderstools, 

 and lay curled up there till the hounds, who got as black as 

 ink, drew right up to them, and then jumped down in view, 

 without any head of earths to fly to." It is better now fewer 

 morasses, more earths, and no digging. The staghounds of the 

 Forest in the present day are almost entirely of Bramham 

 Moor origin, and take to their work with all the vigour and 

 dash that marks that pack upon its more legitimate game. It 

 is to Mr. G. Lascelles, Deputy Surveyor of the Forest, whose 

 father Lord Hare wood was long time Master -of the Bramham 

 Moor that the predilection for, and attainment of, this good 

 blood is mainly due. 



Exceptionally favourable, no doubt, was the spring of '90, for 

 hunting in the Forest. The cold winds of April kept it back, 

 till the time came for copious rain to fall. The ground then 

 softened ; and the moistened earth, while exuding lavishly its 

 own sweet perfumes, retained a scent for hounds testifying 

 plainly that flowers and fox-hunting are not so wholly incon- 

 sistent as we were brought up to believe. 



I am told the Forest can get very hard in a dry spring. All 

 the more thanks, then, for its recent mood, which allowed of our 

 seeing sport under gay sunshine yet upon elastic carpeting. 

 Hounds have been out for the last time ; and the fallow buck 

 and Keynard the fox are now to be left to their summer 

 holiday. The Forest is now for the tripper, the botanist, the 

 painter, and the turtle doves. Already the last-named have 

 been seen hovering round secluded hamlets and meandering 

 through the quiet glens in the neighbourhood of their tempo- 

 rary nests. They might almost succeed in passing for some- 

 thing else but that their plumage is invariably so brand new 

 and their mutual content so obvious and untempered. A very 

 Garden of Eden is the Forest for them. " Ah ! the lovely days 



