io8 HISTORY OF THE YORK AND AINSTY HUNT. 



' much more grass, which of course makes it still better, 

 ' but for plough, what I saw carries a wonderful scent. 

 ' I should here state there was a brace of foxes in Stub 

 ' Wood, notwithstanding its being so recently disturbed. 

 ' This covert is the property of Lord Wenlock, but it 

 'is shot over by the Hon. Egremont Lascelles, who looks 

 ' well after the vulpine interest. 



' The glorious sport I witnessed has, I fear, led me 

 ' to such a length that I must conclude, still hoping that, 

 ' while engaged with neighbouring packs, I may yet find 

 ' time to send my readers an account of man)- such a 

 ' scurry with the York and Ainsty.' H. H. 



It was on Tuesday, the 2nd of February, that Sir Charles 

 Slingsby handled his last fox. Hounds met at Stub Wood, 

 and found at once. Scent served as it had done in the 

 Tuesday country all the season, and hounds ran a cracker 

 to Copmanthorpe village, and then twisted back to Copman- 

 thorpe Wood, finally running into their fox on Mr. George 

 Simpson's farm, at Colton Bridge Mr. Simpson has or 

 had the brush of that fox, than which there is no more 

 melancholy relic. 



For fifteen years did Sir Charles hunt the York and 

 Ainsty, and though that hunt has always been particularly 

 happy in the masters who have ruled over its destinies, 

 it may perhaps be said that the period of Sir Charles's 

 mastership formed the halcyon days of the York and Ainsty 

 hunt. A blank day was seldom it ever known, and though 

 in some districts there was a scarcity of foxes, yet we have 

 it on record that for seven seasons they had not a blank 

 day. Then the country was not so thickly populated, and 

 it was altogether wilder, foxes were stout, and old foxes seem 

 to have been plentiful. I wonder how many old foxes — 

 foxes three and four years old — there are now, not in the 

 York and Ainsty country alone, but throughout the length 

 and breadth of the land. Certainly there are not so many 



