AUGUSTUS F. ROSS 115 



who were with him ; through Bradley Woods to 

 Little joy, under Hobbin, and, recrossing the river, 

 this time by a bridge, into the Ogwell coverts and 

 Deer Park to a limestone quarry, where one of the 

 hounds went over, the rest being stopped by the 

 first whip. Scent then failed, and the fox was lost 

 after a very fast hour and forty minutes. 



Other doings of the pack were chronicled in the 

 Field from time to time, but this appears to have 

 been a bad scenting season on the whole, though 

 there were, of com'se, some good scenting days. The 

 very few enthusiasts who turned up at the Thorns on 

 the 20th December despite the drenching rain, were 

 rewarded with a racing thirty minutes, without a 

 check, from the top of Haldon to Powderham, where 

 the fox went to ground after disturbing a shooting- 

 party there. Another fast gallop of fifty-five minutes 

 without a check was the one from Well Covert on the 

 24th January, by Ideford through Luton Bottom to 

 Luscombe, Tower Plantation and Ashcombe schools, 

 entering Mamhead near the Rectory, and ending at 

 an open earth in Sir Lydston Newman's coverts. 

 Three days later the pack put in some good work in 

 the unpopular region of Manaton and Lustleigh 

 Cleave ; and the last day of January provided an 

 orthodox finish with a kill in the open near Mamhead 

 after a fast twenty-five minutes, preceded by much 

 skirmishing, with more than one fox, to and fro 

 between Well Covert, Ugbrooke and Chudleigh Rocks. 

 At Churston on the 3rd February a fox was run to 

 the Cliffs from Longwood and killed ; and on the 

 7th at Haldon Race-stand all the efforts of the 

 master to warm up his half-frozen field were frus- 

 trated through lack of scent in the bleak easterly 

 wind. 



