54 THE SOUTH DEVON HUNT 



there in Carew's time. The branch railway hne from 

 Newton Abbot to Moretonhampstead is the only new 

 barrier. But it has been there since the 'sixties ; and 

 foxes in other countries cross the line continually. 

 The explanation may be that no necessity exists for 

 foxes to cross this particular line, as they have a wide 

 tract of country on either side of it unimpeded by any 

 other railway. A similar reason may account for 

 foxes no longer crossing, as they were wont to do, the 

 wide navigable portion of the Teign lower down, 

 where the main line of the Great Western Railway 

 runs parallel and close to the river between Teign- 

 mouth and Newton Abbot. Old Mr. Arthur Owen, 

 who was intimately associated with the Teignmouth 

 and Shaldon Bridge Company, and who died in 1901, 

 told me that he once saw Sir Walter's hounds cross 

 the river, at low tide, a very short distance above the 

 bridge. Twice only is anything of the sort specifically 

 mentioned in the journal. Once on the 31st Decem- 

 ber, 1839, when they ran a bagman, as already 

 mentioned,^ " through Lyndridge across the river 

 at Netherton Point and earthed in the rocks above 

 Abbotskerswell " ; and once with a fox from Well 

 cover " over Humber Moor to the river at the 

 Pleasure House. ^ Fox crossed, but the tide was too 

 high for us to follow.'' From the matter-of-fact way 

 in which the crossing is referred to in these two cases, 

 and from the brevity of many of the entries, we may 

 fairly conclude the occurrence was not unusual. And 

 from the concluding words of the last-quoted entry, 

 it is clear the field did not hesitate to ford the river 



1 See p. 52. 



* The Pleasure House was an octagonal building belonging to Mr. Comyns 

 of Wood, on the North Bank of the River Teign at a spot nearly opposite 

 Netherton Point. The ruins of this have disappeared dxiring quite recent 

 years. 



