262 HUNTING. 



keeping to the open for the other two days. The country is 

 eminently a sporting one, full of foxes and coverts, and of 

 squires ' hunting from home,' as we have said before, the best 

 of all supports to a pack of hounds. But it must in truth be 

 said that as a country to ride over it has many superiors. It 

 is flat, which is in its favour certainly ; but also it is thickly 

 wooded, and very thickly ploughed. On the western side from 

 Newport Pagnell to Northampton there is a fair sprinkling of 

 meadow land, and on the Kimbolton side you may often get a 

 gallop into the best of the Fitzwilliam country. But plough is 

 the prevailing feature, so that a strong short-legged horse is the 

 animal to bestride ; very fast he need not be, but he must jump, 

 both big and cleverly, for the fences as a rule are hairy and 

 trappy. Bedford and Bletchley are the best quarters, while 

 Starnbrook commands the woodlands, which, it may here be 

 said, are liberally supplied with rides. 



A rare pack is the Milton, or, as it is more commonly 

 spoken of, the Fitzwilliam. For over a hundred years it has 

 been the property of the family of that name, and the 

 Milton blood ranks with the Belvoir and the Brocklesby as the 

 best in the kingdom. And a fine large sporting country it has 

 to hunt over, stretching from Huntingdon and St. Ives on the 

 south, almost to Crowland on the north. On the west it 

 marches with the Pytchley and Cottesmore — good neighbours 

 — while south and east lie the Oakley, the Cambridgeshire and 

 the West Norfolk. Like the Oakley, the Fitzwilliam country is 

 a severe one for horses, wild and deep, the coverts often very far 

 apart, much wood, and a superfluity of plough. There is also 

 a particular kind of fence in the south and south-western dis- 

 tricts ; blackthorn, of abnormal height and density to be sur- 

 mounted best, say those who know, by that discreet process known 

 ^s going round. Yet, though as a riding ground this country 

 cannot rank high, so good are the hounds, so stout the foxes, so 

 genuine the condition and general economy of things, that the 

 Fitzwilliam bears a name second to none in the favour of sports- 

 men. From Peterborough and Huntingdon the country can best 



