370 The Hunting Countries of England. 



hills, and keeping a sturdy clever hunter for the vale. 

 For a down fox seldom takes the vale ; while a fox 

 found in the vale or in the deep woods of the west has 

 plenty of scope in his native sphere. 



The most westerly woods regularly drawn are, per- 

 haps, those known as the Black-Dog Woods at Stander- 

 wick ; though occasionally hounds are taken as far as 

 Orchardleigh, and about once a season to Mells. But, 

 lower down, about Wanstrow, they hunt regularly; 

 and Batcombe Wood is one of their deepest coverts. 

 Eight hundred acres is no uncommon size for a wood- 

 land on this side ; and, after leaving Barrow Wood, 

 Upton Wood, &c., one finds about Witham a great 

 chain of such coverts, stretching northward almost ta 

 Warminster, and southward to the Stourton Woods in 

 the Blackmoor Vale country. Among these are the 

 West End Woods, Witham Park (a wood some three 

 miles in length), Bradley W^oods (the property of the 

 Duke of Somerset), and the Marquis of BatVs great 

 coverts at Longleat. Just within this semicircle of 

 woodland is a district best known as the Maiden- 

 Bradley country, wherein is Hicks Park Wood, an 

 admirable covert, well situated and owning a stout 

 race of foxes. When drawing this, the chief aim is, 

 not unnaturally, to prevent foxes from making for the 

 big woodlands so near at hand. All this, the Frome 

 side of the country, is hunted on a Tuesday (or it 

 may be, a Wednesday or Thursday, according to 

 where the Duke may be meeting) — the usual places of 

 meeting being Black-Dog Wood, Wanstrow, Witham, 

 Yarnfield (on the edge of the Blackmoor Yale), 

 Maiden Bradley, Bishopstrow, and Southleigh (the 



