HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



recollections of the dismal state in which the frost 

 had left the country. 



It appears from this report that the forty-nine 

 coverts of the end of Sir John Kennedy's Master- 

 ship had been increased to eighty-eight, which 

 strikes me as a very satisfactory increase during a 

 period of sixteen years. Of these, fifty-three were in 

 the home country, twenty in the Ballitore country, 

 and fifteen in the Enfield district. 



The great majority of these coverts were given 

 rent free to the Hunt by their owners, seventy- two 

 in fact out of the eighty-eight were thus provided. 

 Sixteen others were rented at sums varying between 

 £3 3s. and £15, the average being ^£6 i8s. 6d. 



Certain notes at the end of the schedule of 

 coverts, however, gives another and gloomier 

 view of the situation in 1857. It appears that 

 in the preceding spring cubs had been bred in 

 only thirty-five of the eighty-eight, though the 

 writer adds, " there have been many other litters 

 in earths not in coverts." But another note at the 

 end of the report discloses the serious state of 

 things caused by the severity of the preceding 

 winters. " Eighty-eight coverts of which scarcely 

 fifty are fit to draw," and from a detailed series of 

 observations which the report makes concerning 

 the present state of each of the coverts, it is clear 

 that a great number of them had suffered irre- 

 24Z 



