66 The Hunting Countries of England. 



note your tastes or pounce upon your shortcomings ; 

 your horsemansliip or your nerve will not be harslily 

 judged^ nor even your adaptation of ethics be roughly 

 criticised. But (verhum sap.) do not go to Melton to 

 be a fish out of water — even to find yourself not the 

 only one gasping on the bank. 



As a quarter the Metropolis of Hunting (as it has 

 long been justly termed) is unrivalled; but though, 

 if at Melton, you would naturally become a member 

 of the Quorn Hunt (and probably give the price of a 

 horse towards its funds), yet your sport would by no 

 means be restricted to that pack. The Quorn country 

 is but limited. The best of it — viz., the Melton side, 

 and generally termed the grass country, in contra- 

 distinction to the Forest — is only sufficient for two 

 advertised days a week (Mondays and Fridays), to 

 which the master usually adds a Thursday byeday. 

 Tuesdays and Saturdays are held on the west of the 

 country (totally different ground, and but little 

 worthy of a place in the Shires) — Tuesday in Charn- 

 wood Forest and its neighbourhood, and Saturday in 

 a well-tilled wilderness north of Loughborough. 

 These two days are better reached from the latter 

 town, or from Leicester : the Melton men preferring a 

 more favourable scene, nearer home, with the Cottes- 

 more and Belvoir, even to hunting with their own 

 pack. 



It is by no means one of the least advantages of 

 Melton Mowbray that hounds are close at hand every 

 day in the week. With the variety offered by three, 

 or even four, packs, it seldom happens that the ride 

 to covert is more than ten miles — and the average 



