100 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



steep, but mosit of it on a gradual slope. Tliere are no coverts 

 near the summit of tlie hill, and the plamtiatioii called Watch 

 Hill is a mile below the ridge, and is not io good a coverti as 

 it onoe was, owing to the heather undergrowth having 

 gradually disappeared. Fifteen years ago it was the most 

 popular coverti in the hunt, and the starting point of many 

 good hunts, buti times change, and hounds now run through 

 it far oftener than they find a fresh fox in its recesses. In 

 my early hunting days the T'ynedale oftein came to 

 Minsteracres, especially towards the end of the season, and I 

 can remember a very fine hunt from Watch Hill, towards 

 the end of the 'seventies. Hounds met at Minsteracres, and 

 drew the coverts on the east side of the hall without finding. 

 There were not tooi many foxes in this particular locality 

 then, but they got on to a stale line in Fotherley Gill, 

 and worked slowly tO' Watch Hill. The plantation was quite 

 new then, and there was a. lot of gorse where the trees now 

 are, and from the lane the whole covert was visible. Ho'Unds 

 sent a fox out on the south side, who went over the hill and 

 for ai mile or twoi down the valley, and then circled right- 

 handed to- Eddy's Bridge, and came roomd by Birkenside and 

 Moorgame to Minsteracres, and thence through several 

 coverts to the Lead road, where he got intoi a, drain under 

 the road, and from which he was got out and killed. This 

 was a fast and good hunt., though in a circle, and I remember 

 that several of the Tynedale men ol that day, whoi seldom 

 came to meets on the south side of the Tyne, were loud in 

 their praises of the country, and more particularly of the 

 soundness of the going. More recently, perhaps eight or ten 

 years ago, the Braeis of Derwent had a great run from Watch 

 Hill. They approached it from the Whittongtall side, found 

 two foxes, and went away on the west side, running a fast 

 loop of half an hour over the Fotherley farms and then 

 regaining the coverti. They werei out again on the south 

 side almost immediately, and ran to Allansford on the 

 Derwent, went on intoi the North Durham country, and finally 

 were stopped at. dusk near a lonely honse named Badajoz, 

 which is situated midway between the West Auckland turn- 

 pike at Drover House and the meeting place of the North 

 Durham at Salters Gate, and which is less than two miles 



