PREFACE 



A HUNT that can claim to have been " estab- 

 hshed for over a century " and can boast of a 

 succession of masters unbroken during that period, 

 save for one short season ninety years ago, is certainly 

 entitled to its history. The mere desire, however, to 

 see justice done to a venerable institution was not 

 alone responsible for the production of this work. 

 So long as hunting exists the past history of a hunt 

 will always be of some interest, and, at times, of some 

 value, to hunting men, especially to members of the 

 particular hunt concerned. This interest increases 

 as the vista of bygone years lengthens, and men 

 begin to live more in the past than in the future. 

 Memory, however, is fickle and leads to surprising 

 mistakes ; and tradition has no chance of life in these 

 days ; so that, in the case of the South Devon Hunt, 

 where changes of scene and players have been many 

 and confusing, there appeared a likelihood of the 

 true facts and sequence of events becoming obscured, 

 if not lost altogether. But to have either interest or 

 value, a history must be true. My chief aim, there- 

 fore, has been accuracy ; I have endeavoured, as far 

 as possible, not to make a statement of fact without 

 first verifying it. In some cases the authority for the 

 statement is quoted ; where it is not, either the fact 



