136 The Hunting Countries of England. 



flinty tillage to mossy sheepwalk. On tlie lower 

 ground, and wherever tlie plough has been at work, 

 it is a case of noses-down and steady hunting always. 

 The clay carries the better scent, but seldom one at 

 all approaching brilliancy. Nor are the downs to be 

 galloped every day. When there is a scent upon them, 

 hounds fly as they do on the Southdown hills, and 

 burst up their fox in from twenty to five-and-thirty 

 minutes. The gorses being small and handy, hounds 

 can be slipped away on their fox^s back — and he 

 never gets a moment to catch his second wind. 

 Taken as a whole, though, the Craven must be 

 spoken of as a cold-scenting country ; and its 

 attributes generally are scarcely of a type to raise 

 it above the level of ^^ provincial.^' This character 

 applies, of course, to the Craven as a country, not as 

 a Hunt : for as a Hunt it has always been maintained 

 on a high footing. Some few years ago the members 

 of the Hunt subscribed to build excellent Kennels 

 and stabling on the present site — which came into 

 Sir Ei chard Sutton's hands with his present estate 

 at Benham. Sir Eichard is commencing his second 

 season of Mastership — having taken the country in 

 1880, and brought thither the bulk of the establish- 

 ment with which Lord Spencer had been hunting the 

 Pytchley woodlands, to wit, huntsman, feeder, some 

 twenty-five couple of hounds, with five horses and 

 saddlery, &c. His Kennel, therefore, contains much 

 the same blood as is to be found among the present 

 Pytchley; while in the existing and lately created 

 Craven pack that he found on his arrival, there was, 

 with other material, much from the Quorn Kennel. 



