6 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



day. Perhaps men will say that now they have no time for that 

 sort of thing ; the elder generation devoted their lives to hunting, 

 but they have something else to do. No doubt this is true, if they 

 want to become perfect masters of the art — modernized Meynells 

 — but I am recommending nothing of the sort. A few years of 

 ordinary observation will give them all they want to know j but 

 observation is a faculty few exercise in the matter of sport, or 

 we should not see a man, owner of a large and very first-class 

 stud of hunters— one who hunted nearly every day in the week 

 — ride straight to the very point a master has left open for the 

 fox to break covert, as I have seen done ere now. 



In horsemanship there is no doubt but we excel our pre- 

 decessors ; many men ride now as well as a few did in old 

 days, and, in my opinion, on far worse materials, though they 

 have the advantage of having their horses in better condition. 

 That the hunter is what he was even thirty years ago, taken as 

 a class, I do not believe. On the other hand, fences, if not 

 stronger, are far more numerous than they were, and if some of 

 the land rides lighter from being drained, there is more plough 

 to contend with, as well as increased crowds, crushing and 

 jostling for the practicable places; so that, taking things all 

 round, it is more difficult to ride well now than formerly, and 

 the average of really scientific horsemen is, I am convinced, 

 greater. This being admitted, as I believe it will be by all 

 competent to form an opinion on the subject, one great step is 

 taken towards those whose love of the chase is no less ardent 

 than that of their forefathers, becoming something more than 

 mere horsemen; in fact, as I said above, better sportsmen. 

 With superior advantages for watching the work of hounds, 

 in the capability of riding well up to them, it wants merely less 

 jealousy of our fellows, and a truer appreciation of what the 

 art of riding a chase should be, coupled with the observation, 

 which the cessation of this system of turning the hunting- 

 field into a race-course would allow ample time for, to give us a 

 great increase in the number of men who really know what 



