6 WITH HOUND AND TERRIER. 



for nearly thirty years, that the foxes had been 

 systematically destroyed, and even that their 

 haunts and earths were known to few, if to any 

 persons, except to those who dealt in their de- 

 struction ; 2nd, that this small extent of country 

 had never been hunted before by any gentleman 

 as an entire country ; 3rd, that at its farthest 

 north - eastern, Wiltshire, extremity the coverts 

 are of enormous extent, and so full of earths 

 as to baffle the vigilance of the most careful 

 and active stopper ; 4th, that a large portion 

 of the country lying between Compton Castle 

 and Yeovil is nearly destitute of covert of any 

 description capable of holding a fox during the 

 winter months, consisting almost entirely of sandy 

 arable land, intersected by roads and notorious 

 as bad scenting ground ; and, lastly, that a system 

 bordering on persecution in the county of Dorset 

 was not wanting to superadd difficulties to the 

 whole of no ordinary kind. 



Yet in spite of difficulties the hunt became 

 very popular, and from the same old journal I 

 find that at a fixture at Stock House in 1828 

 there were " two hundred and eighty-five horse- 

 men " present, a very large field for that period. 

 On that occasion hounds were hunting fox, and 

 finding immediately, " after a brilliant burst of 

 forty minutes they killed their fox in superior 

 style in the open, before he could reach Caundle 

 Holt coverts." 



Another run chronicled in March 1831 deserves 



