138 The Hunting Countries of England. 



affecting hounds — and consequently of dire importance- 

 to those whose task it is to find them and to keep them 

 in health. We mean the flints, which lie so thickly- 

 over the whole country. If the palm is to be given 

 anywhere for quantity, it is perhaps due to the E-ams^ 

 bury district, where you could scarcely drive the tine- 

 of a fork into the ground without its ringing against a 

 loose sharp flint. But they are most to be dreaded on 

 the downs, where they are often half embedded in th& 

 turf, with firm keen edges above the ground to cut a 

 hound's foot or leg like a knife. 



There are not many big coverts in the Craven 

 country as at present defined. Perhaps the largest 

 are the woods of Chaddle worth and Welford (in the 

 middle of the Hunt), with Aldbourn Chase, and, in 

 the extreme south, Pen Wood. The latter is a great 

 boggy place, wherein it is almost dangerous to leave 

 one ride to make a short cut to another. On the- 

 downs you find only nice small gorses, where a fox 

 can neither dwell when found, nor rest when tired. 



The Downs, which run round all the north of the 

 country, may be said to commence about Ilsley and 

 Catmore, and continue by WooUey Park, Lambourne,. 

 Russley and Marlborough — the country shelving 

 downwards thence past the Kennels (which are at 

 Walcot, close to Kintbury Station) till it reaches its 

 lowest at the foot of the hills on which stand Butter- 

 mere Combe, &c. Along this southern boundary-line- 

 there are various neutral coverts — for instance. Butter- 

 mere Gorse and Combe Wood — drawn conjointly with 

 The Tedworth; and the woods of Dairyhouse, 

 Nuthanger, and Fro Park with The Vine. 



