104 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



to tiie western side of the country. To go more intoi detail, 

 there are two' meets for the Pont. — one at Long Close Gate, on 

 the Newcastle toi Shotley Bridge road, and the other at 

 Pont Head, a. bleak spot high up the country, where the 

 Pont streiam has its source. The two meeta mean drawing 

 tlie same coverts, froan the south end after meeting at Pont 

 Head, and from the north end after meeting at Long Close Gate. 

 The last-named place isJ most frequently cho&en, and hounds 

 begin, as a rule, by drawing the Ha.g Banks, on the Derwent, 

 where a fox may easily cross the river into Chopwell Wood. 

 Then exactly at the meeting place is a. useful wood named 

 Medomsley Banks, on the Hamsterley Estate., and east of it 

 the Chimney Wood, both likely, but not certain finds, merely 

 because all foxes bred there go sooner or latier to thei Pont 

 Gill. This covert is three miles long and is a ravine, narrow 

 in some places, broader in others, and with several spurs thrust 

 out intO' the open countiy. It is perhaps as much beloved of 

 foxes a& any covert I know of in the north, and even quito 

 late in the season there will often be four or five on foot by 

 the time hounds have reached the centre of the covert.. There 

 are five diif e.rent owners in the three-mile length of the ra,vin6, 

 and, therefore, there has at times been a good deal of trouble 

 in connection with the stopping ; but. in these days two 

 prominent members of the hunt, Mr F. Kirkup, of Medo.m9- 

 ley, and Mr Robinson, of South Medomsley, have o.rganised 

 raatt.ers to great advantage, and running to. ground is not 

 so common as it once was. But the hunting which takes place 

 at the Pont is not altogether popular, for the place essentially 

 favours hound work, and good rung in the o.p.e.n do not. come 

 from it every day. The trouble is that hounds frequently 

 divide, and that the foxes go up and down the ra,vine, or 

 merely cross tlie open into one of the spurs and roach the 

 main gill again. The field remain on the grass outside, and 

 generally on the west, side of the covert., and there is alwa.ys 

 a crowd of foot people from the collieries further away, and 

 which, by the way, do not interfere with Pont hunting in the 

 least. But the unexpected happens sometimes, and early in 

 1912 there came from the Pont one of the very best hunts 

 which has taken place since Mr Priestman took the hounds. 

 An enterprising fox left the covert by Southfields Farm, and 



