The Hunting Year 



" the brave days of old." And when one comes 

 to think of it, if a man has turned out in the 

 early days of August and followed up the sport 

 throughout the hunting year, the time has 

 arrived when he and his horses both need and 

 deserve a rest. 



There are here and there countries in which 

 hounds can hunt during the whole of April — in 

 which indeed it is necessary for hounds to hunt 

 during the whole of April, and into these coun- 

 tries the very keen sportsman not infrequently 

 migrates when hunting is over in his own 

 country — provided, that is, that he has 

 sufficient horses left, a very necessary proviso 

 indeed. 



These countries are wild, and what the ex- 

 quisite would call unfashionable, and it would 

 puzzle his brain to find adjectives expressive 

 enough to describe his disapproval of them. 

 Widespreading moorlands, rising one behind 

 the other, hilly and in places precipitous, and 

 practically unrideable in the middle of the 

 season on account of the bogs, are the places 

 fitted for April hunting, and where they exist 



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