The Dumfriesshire, 287 



landowners are mostly resident, generally sporting, 

 and all inclined to uphold such an institution as a 

 country pack of foxhounds. The coverts, too, happen 

 to be large and numerous ; and so foxes have every 

 chance of multiplying. Again, the very size and 

 number of the coverts prevent their being easily 

 killed ; for, though the woods are chiefly fir (often with 

 an under carpet of heather) , and carry a good scent, 

 a beaten fox very frequently finds a substitute. On the 

 hills there are little else but belts and plantations of 

 spruce fir ; though the patches of heather will often 

 hold a fox. 



Among the chief ranges of coverts are the follow- 

 ing, commencing with the neighbourhood of Locker- 

 l)ie, which is the most central and accessible point 

 within the radius of the Hunt. At Turmuir is a chain 

 (.f small woods, perhaps forty or fifty acres apiece, 

 belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch. Mr. Robert 

 fFardme has excellent and well-preserved coverts at 

 Castlemilk ; and these of Mr. Brooks at Hoddam 

 Castle are equally good — Woodcock Aire being the 

 principal one. Brownmoor, which also belongs to 

 the Duke of Buccleuch, is a wood comprising several 

 hundred acres of Scotch fir with heather underfoot. 

 Turning to the south, we find Kinmount (the property 

 of the Marquis of Queensberry, but at present the 

 residence of the Master, Mr. L. Salkeld), where there 

 are seven hundred acres of covert intermingling with 

 the park and precincts. To instance its value to tht^ 

 Hunt, it ma.y be mentioned that hounds drew th(^ 

 coverts no less than twenty-one times last season, 

 without ever failing to find a fox. At Comlongon 



