THE FOOT DEAG 



29 



disbursements such as tea at the inn, which is a great feature 

 of driving days, two terms' sport cannot cost more than £7. The 

 tradition of making beagling a sport for undergraduates of no 

 more than moderate or even of limited means is therefore well main- 

 tained. Whips pay a subscription of £10 for the season, and the 

 Master the difference between his income in subscriptions and from 

 the sale of surplus puppies and the cost of maintaining and hunting 

 the hounds, which difference, of course, must vary with the Master's 

 care for economy and his success in attracting subscribers ; but in 



Fearful Heavy Weather. 

 Anon, from T.F.B.C. Book. 



any case it must cost the Master more than it does his whips. This 

 also is thoroughly just, for the amount of fun you get out of such a 

 pack increases the more you have to do with it, and it is but right 

 that your share of the cost should increase in proportion. 



Two sorts of country are hunted in, or rather three— plough 

 country, woodlands, and the fen. The fen is sheer flat black peaty 

 soil reclaimed from a state of swamp in which it must have afforded 

 marvellous wild-fowl and mixed rough shooting. In its present 

 cultivated condition it is perfectly open, the peat-like soil is not 

 sticky to run in, the fields are divided by dykes full of water which 

 have to be jumped clean, hares are few and strong, and the vast open 

 space of the fen is strangely and compellingly attractive, so that 



