THE PROVINCES. 263 



be reached, both under two hours' journey from London ; and the 

 former only three miles distant from the kennels at Milton Park. 

 To many of the meets the hounds have to be carried by rail, 

 and generally it may be said that a day's hunting with this pack 

 involves the covering of a good deal of ground. The best of 

 the country belongs to the Wednesday meets, Lilford, Thrap- 

 ston Bridge, Bythorne Tollbar, and so forth. A good fox from 

 Fitchmarsh Warren, Lord Lilford's park, Barmvell Wold, Stan- 

 wick Pastures, or Catworth Gorse, will nearly always take a 

 good line southward along the Pytchley border, and possibly 

 over it. Eastward of Elton again, in the Peterborough district, 

 there is some fine grass land, and the ploughs about these parts 

 are less tenacious than elsewhere. Farther east of Peterborough 

 lie the Great Fens, and if foxes put their heads that way, as they 

 often do, especially from Holme Wood, you may as well turn 

 yours homeward ; for there is little to be done there, unless your 

 nag be web-footed. 



To go one by one through all the good packs of Eng- 

 land and their countries is beyond our scope. ' Cecil ' and 

 ' Brooksby ' have done that for us, and to them we must refer 

 our readers who still are undecided, or thirst for yet larger 

 knowledge. In this chapter we have specially confined our- 

 selves to the best of those which lie within convenient reach of 

 London ; trying to indicate the quarters where a man, ambitious 

 of some larger sport than is to be met with among the more 

 distinctly suburban packs, and yet compelled to be in London 

 a certain number of days in the week, is likely to gratify his 

 ambition most reasonably and easily. Many things have neces- 

 sarily been left unsaid ; many countries left unvisited. Cheshire 

 and Shropshire, for instance, counties as rich in hunting 

 memories and hunting realities as any in England. The 

 ' Green Collars ' of Cheshire are as historic as the ' White 

 Collars ' of the Pytchley or the ' Blue and Buff' of Badminton; 

 and their historic heroes, the famous old Nestor, Sir Harry 

 Mainwaring, Tom Ranee, with his ' single eye,' worth many 

 another's two, Joe Maiden, and many another good sportsman 



