A GLANCE AT ENGLISH PACKS 137 



carries mostly pasture, but there is here and there 

 heavy plough. On the hills, the going consists a good 

 deal of light plough. The country is well stocked 

 with hares, and sport is very good. Wire exists, but 

 is well marked where it has not been taken down. For 

 nine years Mr. Gibbons hunted thrice a week, but he 

 has now returned to his earlier practice of two days. 

 The Longford harriers, established in 1840, hunt a 

 good grass country in the neighbourhood of Gloucester. 

 They are a subscription pack, belonging to the farmers 

 of this district, with kennels at Longford. They 

 number twenty-three couples of twenty-inch harriers, 

 mostly entered in the harrier and beagle Stud-book. 

 Mr. J. G. Blagrave, last season joint Master with the 

 late Mr. O. E. Part, hunts them. The CHfton foot- 

 harriers, sixteen couples of sixteen and a half-inch 

 Stud-book harriers, carry on operations in no less 

 than four counties, to wit, Gloucester, Somerset, 

 Wilts, and Monmouth, chiefly in the territories of the 

 Duke of Beaufort's, Lord Fitzhardinge's, and Mr. 

 Curre's foxhounds. The kennels are at Yatton, 

 in Somerset, and the pack hunts two days a week. 



We now come to the home counties. Hertfordshire 

 boasts but a single pack of harriers, the Aldenham, 

 which, however, is a very good one. Seventeen and 

 a half couples of twenty and a half-inch Stud-book 

 harriers, kennelled at Chiswell Green, near St. Albans, 

 hunt a country chiefly composed of plough. The 

 late Mr. L. E. Rickards, who mastered this pack from 

 1885 to 1890, took a very keen interest in the improve- 

 ment of the modem harrier, and to him in great part 

 is to be attributed the foundation of the Harrier and 

 Beagle Stud-book, and the harrier classes at Peter- 

 borough Hound Show. Mr. H. S. Bailey, the present 

 Master, who owns the pack, is also his own huntsman. 



