xii INTRODUCTION 



not be written only in the study. Its materials must 

 to a great extent be gathered in the open air, and the 

 advice contained in it suggested by participation 

 in the scenes described. These chapters have, in fact, 

 been written in the intervals of a busy season and in 

 the rare leisure of a hunting correspondent whose 

 duty and interest made him an observant spectator 

 of the sport, and the book has therefore been put 

 together in the atmosphere of hunting. I have hunted 

 in nearly all the countries described ; and when I 

 planned the book, I rode and walked over some of 

 the most characteristic parts of the country, in order 

 that the descriptions of fences might be drawn from 

 nature. I have often been able to make use of the 

 past to explain the present and in many cases to 

 illustrate the book with instances which, though 

 drawn from the past, are just as appropriate to our 

 own times. I have thus avoided to a great extent 

 the use of names of persons still living and yet have 

 conveyed the instruction and examples I needed to 

 make clear my meaning. I hope that the arrange- 

 ment of the book on the principle of treating of the 

 various centres and sketching the sport to be ob- 

 tained from them will commend itself to my readers 

 as being the most practical method of dealing with 

 the subject. This has enabled me, at the risk of 

 some unavoidable repetition, to make this book to 

 some extent a guide from a hunting point of view to 

 a visitor to the places dealt with. I need not say 

 that each town is written of entirely from the point 

 of view of its suitability as a hunting centre. A 

 friend of mine once threw a guide-book down with 

 indignation : " Here," he said, " is a fellow who writes 

 four pages about the architecture of a church and 

 dismisses the F hounds and their kennels in a 



