^Nimrod ' 



writer on hunting has observed, ' The emulation of leading, 

 in dogs and their masters, has been the ruin of many a good 

 cry.' One circumstance, however, has greatly tended to 

 perfect the system of riding well up, and this is the im- 

 proved condition of hunters/ Of Mr. Meynell's time, two 

 celebrated chaces are recorded in print : one of an hour 

 and twenty minutes without a check ; and the other, two 

 hours and fifty minutes without a cast. Only two horses 

 carried their riders throughout the first run, and only one 

 went to the end of the second ; both foxes were killed, and 

 every hound was present at the death of each. We may 

 venture to say, had the two runs we have alluded to taken 

 place within the last few years, this superiority in the con- 

 dition of the hounds over the horses would by no means 

 have been maintained. 



We wish we could gratify such of our readers as are 

 sportsmen with the date and origin of our best packs of 

 foxhounds, as well as the names and character of their 

 owners ; but our limits will not allow us to go into much 

 detail. Perhaps the oldest foxhound blood in England at 

 this time is to be found in the kennel of the Earl of Lons- 

 dale, at Cottesmore. The Noels, whom this family suc- 

 ceeded, were of ancient standing in the chace ; and the 



1 The advantages of the new system of preparing the hunter for the field 

 have been so clearly demonstrated by the author of these papers, in his Letters 

 on the Condition of Hunters^ Riding to Hounds, etc., that the old one, of turning 

 him to grass in the summer, and destroying that condition which it had taken 

 months to procure, is nearly, if not totally, exploded in the studs of all the 

 hard riders of the present day. 



