148 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



unless they can ride over f^rass, and get easy access to town, 

 should frost or lameness put a stop to proceedings for a day or 

 two ; yet they want to be back at their hunting quarters at the 

 slightest sign of a thaw, and even at times to hunt in the 

 morning, and go to the opera at night. Holdemess does not 

 fulfil these requirements, and, in con.sequence, is not extensively 

 patronized. " Happy Holderness " many will say, and I am 

 by no means inclined to contradict them. There is another 

 thing, Holderness is emphatically a sportsman's country, and I 

 take leave to say that very few but real sportsmen will ever be 

 found in it. It is moderately free from large woodlands, but 

 has sprinkled over it some very nice gorse coverts, which, al- 

 though they certainly are not so good as woodlands for cub- 

 hunting and making young hounds handy, are preferable when 

 you get into the regular season. Castle Hill is a favourite 

 covert, well situated. Benningholme, an ozier holt of note, is 

 not what it once was ; but Catwick Whin, a broom covert, is 

 quite a sight. Wawne is a good wood covert, but I might go 

 on ad infinitum. 



At Meux Abbey they find in Mr. Richardson's laurels ; but, 

 when I was in the country, his gorse was sadly cut up from 

 blight, as indeed were many others at that time. There is a 

 very peculiar stick covert on Lord Londesborough's pro^^erty, 

 in the Carrs, which is seldom drawn without producing a fox. 

 Old roots and trunks of trees have been thrown together to 

 some little height, and, on the top of these, fagots, hedge-trim- 

 mings, loppings of trees, and all other rubbish of that sort is 

 piled, thus making, as it were, a very comfortable earth above- 

 ground for the foxes ; and as there is a plantation of fir-trees 

 of some little thickness all round it, pleasanter quarters could 

 scarcely be found. It is situated in reclaimed fen land, 

 light, but peaty, and open for miles — the fields being fenced 

 by the drains which carry off the water; and, as the banks 

 are treacherous and rotten, it may be surmised that it is a 

 very difficult piece of country to cross; the drains also are 



