148 Hunting Countries of England, 



outsiders as the fisherman's mania is to liim who does 

 not fish, or as the enthusiasm of the golfer to him who 

 has never learned golf. But the passion does exist, 

 and is quite as solid and lasting as that commanded by 

 the more butterfly forms of the chase. Men who 

 favour woodland hunting claim for it all the excel- 

 lencies for hound-work above alluded to. They insist, 

 too (with a pleasant self-satisfaction impossible to 

 begrudge them), that whoever goes into the woods 

 with hounds must go there for hunting only, and with 

 none of the weak ulterior motives of company, cofiee- 

 housing, or dress. 



But it must not be inferred that the whole of the 

 country in question is one vast woodland — though it 

 may be true that there is as much timber grown in it 

 as in any similar area in England, and along the north 

 west side stretches a tract of covert almost unbroken. 

 There is an oasis of fine grass almost in the centre of 

 the country, there is more along the eastern border, 

 and a wide corner of open ground in the south. 



The boundaries of the Woodland Pytchley are as 

 follows. The Midland Railway from Wellingboro^ to 

 Market Harboro' is held to be the line of division 

 from the main Pytchley now governed by Mr. 

 Langham — except that Lord Spencer hunts the small 

 coverts at Glendon and Rushton Hall, which are 

 beyond the railway. The remainder of the outline is 

 much as is shown on Stanford's Map* and is con- 

 tained in the natural boundaries of the river Welland 

 on the west and the Nene on the east. Its northern 



* Vide "Stanford's Large Scale Map," sheet 10; also " Hob- 

 son's Foxhunting Atlas." 



