PREFACE vii 



spondent work has been a labour of love, living 

 over again the enjoyable moments spent in the 

 field and in the kennel with many famous packs 

 of hounds, to whose noble owners we are deeply 

 grateful for much kindness and encouragement. 

 The story and impressions thus gleaned of hounds 

 and many good sportsmen met in our travels, is 

 rather intended as a pleasurable resume of an 

 enjoyable life, and not a critical survey of the chase. 

 In time to come, when we have vanished from the 

 scene and other players take their part in the great 

 drama of fox-hunting, these impressions of a very 

 good time spent with hounds, we venture to think, 

 must be of interest, for names of sportsmen as well 

 as hounds crop up again in the third and fourth 

 generations, and the " old country " welcomes such 

 back to the land of their ancestors. 



To kindly editors of Land and Water years ago, 

 and especially our " friend and guide," the late 

 Captain J. Moray Brown, with whom we served 

 an apprenticeship as hunt correspondent, we are 

 sincerely grateful. For permission to reproduce 

 some pen and pencil incidents of the chase, con- 

 tributed week by week through many seasons' 

 hunting, we thank the proprietors of the Graphic, 

 Daily Graphic, the Field, the County Gentleman, 

 Vanity Fair, the Crown, Baily's Magazine, Fores' 

 Magazine, Sporting Pictorial, the Grantham Journal, 

 and others, who have so kindty lent us assistance 

 on many occasions. 



Early impressions of hounds and hunting were 

 implanted by Frank Gillard, huntsman to the 

 Dukes of Rutland for twenty-six seasons, who 

 inspired us with the love of form and symmetry in 

 the foxhound during man}^ visits to Belvoir kennels, 

 and whose " Reminiscences " it was our privilege to 



