I30 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



Stud-book. They hunt the whole of the Wirral penin- 

 sula lying between the rivers Dee and Mersey and 

 their estuaries. This is a fine grass tract, with a good 

 deal of wire in the northern part of the country. These 

 harriers succeeded Sir Thomas Stanley's foxhounds, 

 and the country has been hunted by them since 1868. 



Between Lancashire and Yorkshire and the south 

 and west of England, if we except Norfolk, we find 

 packs of harriers rather few and far between. It is, 

 by the way, a curious circumstance that no pack of 

 harriers is to be found hunting in Lincolnshire, if I 

 except the occasional incursions of the Marquis of 

 Exeter's pack from Stamford. This is a reproach, 

 which, in so excellent a sporting country, ought surely 

 to be removed. 



In Nottinghamshire the Clumber, owned by the 

 Duchess of Newcastle, show good sport, chiefly within 

 the borders of the country hunted by Lord Galway's 

 and the Rufford foxhounds. They number eighteen 

 couples of Stud-book harriers, ranging from nineteen 

 and a half to twenty and a half inches. The Duchess 

 of Newcastle, who hunts her own hounds, started 

 the pack in 1895, recruiting it by drafts from the 

 Brookside, Aspull, Mr. Greswolde Williams', and the 

 Eamont kennels. Shropshire is represented by the 

 Tanatside, a very old established pack, hunting from 

 Oswestry, partly in their own county, partly in Mont- 

 gomeryshire. The hounds, under the new Master, Mr. 

 W. L. Thursby, will consist of some twenty-three couples 

 of twenty-one-inch cross-bred harriers — the late Fore- 

 mark pack — and hunt two days a week. Wire is a 

 trouble in this, as in many other parts, and apparently 

 is on the increase. 



Turning towards the borders of Wales, we find 

 Herefordshire supporting only one pack of harriers. 



