A GLANCE AT ENGLISH PACKS 135 



Woodbridge, They are mastered by Mr. R. E. Walford 

 and consist of nineteen-inch hounds. 



In Bedfordshire are to be found two packs. The 

 Biggleswade, a small pack of twelve couples of Stud- 

 book harriers (nineteen to twenty inches), has been 

 owned and mastered by Mr. George Race, of Road 

 Farm, Biggleswade, since the year 1840. Mr. Race 

 must be almost the oldest — I believe he is the oldest — 

 Master of harriers in the United Kingdom. His father, 

 Mr. John Race, well known as " Thistle Whipper " of 

 the old " Sporting Magazine," kept harriers before 

 him, and the pack was in the family before that gentle- 

 man's time. These harriers hunt in Hertfordshire 

 and Cambridgeshire as well as in Bedfordshire ; the 

 country consists chiefly of plough, but as a set off there 

 is very little wire. Mr. Carpenter's harriers, kennelled 

 at Bedford, hunt in that county and in part of Bucks. 

 Fourteen couples of nineteen-inch Stud-book harriers 

 compose the pack, which has been in the hands of 

 the present Master — his own huntsman — since 1884. 

 Oxfordshire supplied, until the end of last season, 

 1902-03, a single pack of harriers, that of Mr, Mason, 

 otherwise known as the Eynsham Hall, kennelled for 

 many years near Witney. These consisted of twenty- 

 four couples of seventeen-inch, pure harriers (Stud- 

 book), hunting for the most part over arable country, 

 varied by some pasture, in the Heythrop territory. 

 I believe these hounds are being given up. In the 

 interests of sport it may be devoutly hoped that the 

 country will be carried on by a new Master. 



