HUNTS AND THEIR HISTORY 177 



our time have much weakened the attachment of the 

 people to it. A visitor will, of course, see little of 

 the life of the country, mingling only as he does with 

 a crowd on Fridays when he is with hounds. 



VIII. The Warwickshire and North 

 Warwickshire 



Like the Atherstone, the Warwickshire country 

 has reached its present form by degrees, though the 

 county has always been hunted as long as fox-hunting 

 has been known. Warwickshire is indeed well suited 

 for the sport, for within its boundaries there is a 

 great variety of country, and almost every part of 

 it is suitable for hunting. Indeed there is probably 

 no single hunt which in our time or that of our fore- 

 fathers can show a more consistent record of sport. 

 It has always been a country of note, and in the first 

 half of the last century was reckoned, during what 

 some consider to be the golden age of fox-hunting, 

 the third best country in England, the first and second 

 places being assigned to Leicestershire and North- 

 amptonshire respectively. Everything has worked 

 for the prosperity of Warwickshire as a hunting 

 country. The natural features of the country are 

 favourable to hunting, and time has rather improved 

 Warwickshire than otherwise, for up to our own day 

 more and more of the land has been laid down in 

 grass. Old writers seem to have looked on a great 

 part of Warwickshire as a very excellent plough 

 country, but even since Brooksby wrote an account 

 of it in the Field in the late 'seventies, much of what 

 was then plough has been laid under grass. Part of 



M 



