30 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



pitfalls caused by miuiiig near the surface are a greater 

 hindrance to hunting than the collieries themselves; but it 

 must be understood that I am writing of one particular part 

 of the hunt, and not of the north-western quarter, in which 

 there are no collieries and a very thin population. Ivesley 

 Pastures, which are open fields covered with heather and gorse, 

 and Rowley lie south of Town's Plantations, and at the Bid- 

 dings, close by, there was some years ago a single litter of ten 

 fox cubs, as was proved at the time. As may be imagined, 

 they were small and weak, and nearly all of them were killed 

 during cubhunting without affording any sport worth the name. 

 A little further south is Hedley Hope, a strong covert, on a 

 hillside, with the Dearness stream separating it from Stanley 

 Wood. (The Dearness is formed of two streams, one of which 

 comes down from the Comsay valley and the other down the 

 Hedley Hope valley, and which meet near Waterhouses.) 

 These coverts are a great stronghold of foxes, and they form 

 the western end of a chain of woods, of which Ragpath and 

 Waterhouses are more easterly. South of this valley the 

 ground rises gradually to Weather Hill, which, one thinks, is 

 now the best of all the Brancepeth coverts, for it includes 

 young plantations which are snugly placed, miles away from 

 any population, and which afford the driest lying imaginable. 

 Beyond, in the next valley, and still further south, are the 

 IMiddles and Stockley Gill, and foxes ring the changes con- 

 sistently between all the coverts I have mentioned. In fact, 

 great sport is of frequent occurrence on the Brancepeth 

 estate; but as a rule the points are short, and I have known 

 hounds travel between Waterhouses Wood, Weather Hill, and 

 the Middles half a dozen times in one afternoon. Indeed, I 

 have in recollection a. hunt of abouti twenty years ago, when 

 hounds found at the Middles, and were runing for three and a 

 half hours, with no checks worthy of the name, and yet were 

 never more than three miles from where they found. On that 

 occasion they covered quite five-and-twenty miles of country, 

 always at a holding pace, and when darkness came only three 

 or four of a fairly large field were left. It must be under- 

 stood that there are no collieries or villages between the Water- 

 houses district and Brancepeth, and only the smallest agricul- 

 tural population. 



