186 THE SOUTH DEVON HUNT 



calls attention to the fact that they were all riding 

 horses between fourteen and fifteen hands high. 



In Whidborne's second season, things were much 

 better. Foxes were more plentiful, the pack had 

 been improved, the country well " summered " and 

 the affairs of the hunt were in better working order. 

 In those days the shooting difficulty was much less 

 acute than it is to-day, and rabbit -trapping was not 

 carried on in the wholesale way with which we have 

 since grown familiar. The sport in the season 1883-4 

 was very good. Probably the best run in the whole 

 of this mastership was that which occurred on the 

 14th February, 1884. 



The pack met at New Inn and found in Rora, the 

 fox first attempting to break over Ramshorn Down, 

 where he was twice headed back into the covert. He 

 then crossed the bottom and went away to Ilsington 

 Town Wood and on by Ilsington Village and the 

 Narracombe Bottom (where he was viewed some four 

 hundred yards in front of the pack) to the Heytor 

 Vale at a great pace. Here, in the small coverts and 

 broken ground, he made a lot of work, but, without a 

 word from their huntsman, the hounds carried the 

 line on to the open moor beyond, bearing at first to 

 the right as if Yarner was the fox's point. But he 

 was a moorman and a traveller, and, turning outward 

 again and disdaining the Rubble Heap, he crossed 

 the Leighon Valley to Hound Tor Rocks and 

 Swannerton Gate at a clipping pace, only a few of 

 the field being able to keep the pack in sight. From 

 here the line lay over Heatree Down and through 

 Heathercombe Brake on to Hamildown, where Mr. 

 Bragg's hounds were seen running on the left, and so 

 by King Tor and over Shapeley Common to Moor 

 Gate. Crossing the road, hounds ran on across 



