HUNTING TOURS. 265 



CHAPTER XIV. 



MR. TAILBY'S COUNTRY AND HIS HOUNDS. 



The antecedents of Mr. Tailby's country 

 raay be traced to Mr. Noel, whose name has 

 been introduced in the Cottesmore, and from 

 the period when Mr. Meynell first enlivened 

 the plains of Leicestershire with hound and 

 horn to the year 1856, when Mr. Tailby 

 became the master, no division or aliena- 

 tion of this portion had ever taken place. 

 It may he said, indeed, rather to have 

 taken precedence of the far-famed Quorn 

 district ; as Mr. Meynell, when he first kept 

 hounds, resided with his confederate, Mr. 

 Boothby, at Langton Hall, when the kennels 

 were at Great Bowden Inn, bordering on 

 IN^orthamptonshire, and there is reason to 

 believe a portion of the Pytchley country 

 was included in his prerogative. A year or 

 two before Sir Richard Sutton's decease, 



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