COSTUME AND EQUIPMENT. 41 



of ten years ago. How distressed any lady novice 

 would be were she to find that her costume was of a 

 byegone date, unlike all the others in the field ! This, 

 however, is what might happen if she did not go to the 

 right place for her hunting rig- out, and this I know has 

 occurred. My advice to lady novices as regards costume 

 is that they should go to the best places for everything ; 

 but on one point, and one only, should the tailor be 

 ignored, and that is on the stoutness of the material. 

 It is, as a matter of fact, just as important for a woman 

 when hunting to wear strong and warm clothing, vrith 

 great power of resistance, as it is for a man. Women 

 are just as likely to feel cold and the effects of heavy 

 rain as men are, yet the latter almost invariably wear 

 thicker and more waterproof clothes out hunting. In 

 the winter it is generally cold at some period of the day, 

 either first thing in the morning or during the ride 

 home, and I have heard countless complaints from 

 women who could not keep warm on the days of east 

 wind, or when there was a lot of rain. And over and 

 over again I have solved the riddle by a single glance 

 at their clothes. They were wearing the latest things in 

 hunting costumes, sometimes diagonal cloth, sometimes 

 thin whipcord, but never by any chance the thick and 

 almost waterproof cloth of which the man's scarlet 

 or black hunting coat is made, and which is, as a rule, 

 stout enough to defy all the cold and nearly all the vret 

 one is likely to encounter in a day's hunting. If you will 

 take my advice then, ladies, you will eschew all these 

 light-made fancy garments in favour of the genuine 

 thing ; or, if you think the usual cloth that man wears 

 is too sombre and heavy, have your habit bodice (is that 



