124 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



only repeat what I have said before, viz., that though the 

 grouse moors form the western border of all three hunts, 

 hounds seldom go there, and if by any chance a fox does " take 

 to the fells," he, as a rule, quickly leaves the heather again 

 if scent is really good. Personally, I have hunted whole 

 seasons with the two packs. North Durham and Braes of 

 Derwent, and have never been on the moors with the first 

 named, and perhaps twice in the full season with the other 

 pack, which, by the way, has more " moor-edge " country 

 than its neighbour. The Hay don country I do not know 

 enough about in this particular to be decided, but perhaps 

 my correspondent — who writes from " somewhere in France " 

 — will be interested to learn that for over a hundred and 

 fifty miles many of the packs which hunt on the eastern side 

 of England have moors for their western boundary. This 

 applies to the North Northumberland, Coquetdale, Percy, 

 Morpeth, Tynedale, The Zetland, Bedale, Bramham Moor, 

 Badsworth, and Barlow, as well as the hounds in co. Durham, 

 while, in addition, such packs as the Cleveland, Sinnington, 

 and the ' ' Dei'wenti ' ' in Yorkshire are in exactly the seone case. 

 The Hui'woirth, too, reach the moors at times, for in North 

 Yorkshire there are two' lines of moorland, one near the sea, 

 and the other on the western side of the country ; buti what I 

 have written as to hounds seldom going to the moors in the 

 county of Durham probably holds good in a great, degree with 

 regard to all the other packs I have mentioned, and I have long 

 ago come to the conclusion that in an ordinary way foxes find 

 they cannot travel soi well through the heather as they can on 

 the grass land which almost invariably joins it. I remember 

 O'nce going to the Bramham ]\Ioor at Beckwithshaw, when they 

 quickly ran on to moors, and throughout a longish day they 

 were seldom ofE the heather, and this was probably due to 

 the fact that a few miles of heather separate the valleys of 

 the Wharfe and Nidd, and the foxes hunted were probably 

 in the habit of travelling across the heather country between. 



In the South Durham hunt there is no moorland whatever, 

 the country over which Lord Boyne hunts being separated 

 from the moors by the northern portion of the Zetland hunt; 

 but there are certain hunts in the north of England whose 

 countries are almost entirely moorland, and perhaps the best 



