ii8 1885. 



rode home in the usual still, calm, cool, not 

 to sa}^ cold, east wind}^ weather that we are 

 now accustomed to. Never was the Spring so 

 late, and never were the wild flowers, of which 

 Dorsetshire has generally such reason to be 

 proud, so poor and miserable. 



April i6th. — 



We met at Redlynch Gate, and, having 

 drawn Moor Wood, we found and chopped an 

 old dog fox in Charlotte's Plantation. Then 

 found another, of the opposite sex, who gave 

 us a short gallop of fifteen minutes in the 

 direction of Charlton Musgrove and to ground 

 b}^ the farmhouse at Shalford, where her sex 

 secured her safety. We then had a long slow 

 hunting run from the Vicarage Copse towards 

 Bratton, Hadspen, round Leek's Hill, and on 

 as if for Lily Wood, down into the Yarlington 

 Covers, in which he took a turn or two before 

 breaking in the Maperton direction, then 

 swung back up the hills as if for Blscombe, 

 and finally got to ground on Little Clapton 

 Farm, at the end of over an hour and-a-half's 



