CUB-HUXTING. 293 



coverts at Trentham, Tittensor Cliasc, and Beech Clifte, 

 and at Black Lake, near Stallington, Maer Hills, 

 Forty Acres, near Ashley, Wrinehills, Chames, the Woore 

 coverts, Oakley and Doddington, Moddershall, Draycot 

 AVoods, Checkley Wood, Adderley Gorse, the Loggerheads, 

 and the Bitterns, and many other coverts that might be 

 named, all stand plenty of work in the cub-hunting season, 

 and generally supply plenty of "raw" material wherewith 

 to educate the junior members of the pack. "We observe, 

 on looking through the huntsmen's diaries for some years 

 past, that cub-hunting has, as a rule, generally begun in 

 North Staffordshire quite late in August, and has of late 

 years been carried on for four days .a week, formerly for 

 three days. With the lady pack, it has been usual to 

 take out from twenty-eight to thirty couple or so, and 

 with the dog pack, about twenty-five couple. The cub- 

 hunting days have usually averaged from thirty to forty 

 in a season, and the cubs killed have generally averaged 

 from fifteen to twenty brace, or thereabouts. 



These few statistics are perhaps sufiicient to show that 

 the ]\LT,ster has by no means neglected this very essential 

 item of the fox-hunting curriculum. We think we should 

 be quite safe if we said that there is scarcely any hunting 

 country where the cubs are more persistently and systemati- 

 cally bustled about than in North Statlbrdshire, and the 

 Hunt, as a matter of course, reaps the full benefit of this in 

 the sport later on when the regular season sets in. This year 

 we understand Boxall has got an unusually promising lot 

 of young hounds, the weather is only too moist, scent is 

 favourable, and everything seems to augur well for a very 

 successful cub-hunting season, the only drawback being 

 the exceptionally late harvest, which, however (we are 

 writing towards the end of September), cannot be much 

 longer delayed in completion. Maer Hills, and a number 

 of the most reliable cub-hunting coverts, have already been 

 visited with satisfactory results, and given good luck and 

 good weather, the prospects for the coming season of 

 1902-03 seem quite as bright as ever. We find, on 



