42 PRACTICAL HINTS FOR HUNTING NOVICES. 



correct ?) doubly lined with flannel. Warmth you 

 must have at all costs, for though you may get heated 

 when hounds run hard and you have to gallop fast, 

 there is the cooling process afterwards, and when this 

 is taking place warm garments are an absolute 

 necessity. 



Men who have not hunted before should begin so 

 quietly dressed that they will attract no notice — at least 

 on this account. A black or iron-grey frock coat— 

 with the former cloth breeches slightly Hghter in colour, 

 and with the latter breeches to match — black jack 

 boots, and a tall hat or a bowler, the first named preferred. 

 No novice should begin with scarlet and leathers, and 

 at least a season should be passed in the costume I have 

 described. Then, if everything is couleur de rose, if the 

 novice shall have satisfactorily served the first period 

 of his novitiate, he may be advanced to white breeches 

 and top boots, and a year later, if all has gone well 

 with his himting, to scarlet. And the novice who 

 begins some time after he has reached the years of dis- 

 cretion must not be surprised or envious if he sees 

 men much younger than himself wearing scarlet. Such 

 men have probably been brought up to hunting, and 

 naturally take to the full uniform as soon as they are 

 old enough to wear it. It used to be an old saying that 

 all men should ride three seasons in black before they 

 began to wear scarlet ; but this hardly applies in these 

 days, when everything goes so rapidly, and in a general 

 way two seasons is a long enough period for a man 

 to find out whether he really likes hunting, whether he 

 intends to go on with it, and whether he feels that he 

 has sufficiently mastered the subject, so as to be able 



