74 FOX-HUNTING FROM SHIRE TO SHIRE 



Sir William Cooke, M.F.H. 



Ledbury to join Mr E. P. Rawnsley in the master- 

 ship of the Southwold, he made Ranby Hall, near 

 Spilsby, his residence, and erected kennels to start 



breeding a pack of hounds. 

 Last year the countr}^ was 

 divided, and now is 

 hunted four days a week 

 in each division by the two 

 distinct establishments, 

 the respective masters 

 handling their own packs. 

 When visiting the kennels 

 at Ranby Hall, during the 

 spring of 1910, we saw 

 some promising young 

 hounds of Sir William 

 Cooke's breeding, and for blood he had relied 

 on the Milton sires, with satisfactory results, the 

 bitches being some brought from the Ledbury. 

 The pick of the 1909 entry were Tumbler and 

 Tuscan, by Milton Saladin (1906), from Ledbury 

 Truelass ; big-framed hounds, wdth long punishing 

 heads characteristic of the sire, and on their 

 dam's side they get the blood of Belvoir and 

 Warwickshire. Sir William Cooke was hunting 

 the Southwold pack, — not his own, — on the par- 

 ticular day we were out, with C. Morris the 

 keenest of whippers-in, to turn to him, quite as 

 nippy when getting about a covert as the hounds. 

 After drawing a big open country, with patches 

 of gorse and covert on the hill-side which did not 

 respond to the call, we turned to a large tract of 

 wood, known as Willingham forest, where hounds 

 ran hard with a twisty fox. Patches of boggy 

 ground existed in this covert and hounds had the 

 advantage of horses, managing to slip their field 



