176 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



that there is practically no wire in the country. There may 

 be an odd wired spot, quite close to Darlington, where boy 

 trespass must be provided against, but if so the odd strands are 

 well known. This Thursday country attracts very big fields at 

 ordinary times, for all of it can be reached from Darlington, and 

 some years agO' I counted seventy scarlet coats when hounds 

 were drawing one of the small coverts on the Halnaby estate. 

 I have also' on the same day seen, in addition to^ the Zetland 

 field proper, men or women from the Hurworth, Bedale, 

 North and South Durham, York and Ainsty, Clevelan.d, 

 Tynedale, and Braes of Derwent, and a man who had boxed 

 from Appleby in Westmorland, by the Tebay line. There 

 may have been men from hunts that are even fiirther distant, 

 for it is a simple matter tO' box along the main line from 

 York, or from Newcastle-on-Tynei to Darlington. The only 

 drawback to- this Thursday country is that parte of it may 

 hold a lot of surface water after very heavy rain, and that at 

 times it suffers from fog. Indeed, I have gone twice in recent 

 years to Zetland meets when fog prevented hunting; but 

 this occurs in all flat countries, and occiasionally — but nothing 

 like so often — in a hilly country. 



