330 The Hunting Countries of England, 



LOED PORTSMOUTH'S.* 



The leading pack of the west country is that kept 

 by the Earl of Portsmouth at Eggesford House in the 

 centre of sporting Devonshire. The county has been 

 hunted, on plea of every wild animal it possessed^ from 

 time immemorial ; and by foxhunters its face has been 

 mapped out and divisioned again and again, till it 

 stands as now. Since 1875 Lord Portsmouth has 

 hunted the area round his house as at present coloured 

 on the maps referred to — a cession from the Hon. Mark 

 Rolle on the west allowing the formation of the Dul- 

 verton Hunt on the north-east. His country, as now 

 defined, is a territory of not less than thirty miles in 

 length, its chief breadth being twenty ; and to give a 

 rough idea of its general whereabouts it is sufficient to 

 say that it lies between Barnstaple and Exeter. As a 

 matter of fact it does not actually reach either of these 

 towns though it runs up to within ten miles of each, 

 and the kennels of Eggesford are midway on the line 

 of railway between the two. Mr. Mark RoUe hunts 

 all along its western borders : the Stars of the West 

 touch it on the north, the Dulverton and the Tiverton 



* Vide Stanford's " Hunting Map," Sheet 19, and Hobson's 

 Foxhunting Atlas. 



