CHAPTEE VIII. 

 Long Points and the Heythrop. 



It is perhaps a little curious in these days, when hunting 

 is almost everywhere conducted on strictly orthodox lines, 

 that such things as foot races could he in any way associated 

 with a day's foxhunting, but in out-of-the-way, or perhaps 

 i should say unfashionable, countries people were not so strict 

 nearly two generations ago aa they arei now, and I alsoi remem- 

 ber O'ue hunt finishing a two-hours' run in th.e gardens of a 

 large country house about 1.30, that the owner of the house 

 came out and invited all who' were therei to lunch, that the 

 horses were stabled, and hounds put' into a, loose box, and that 

 something like an hour was spent in festivity before horse and 

 hound were again requisitioned. 



The question of long " points " is one which crops up from 

 time to time, and, writing from my own experience, I am 

 inclined to believe that there were, on the whole, more long 

 points in very early hunting days than there now are. Still, I 

 am not quite soi sure of this as I was a few years ag'o, for th.© 

 simple reason that during the four or five seasons immediatiely 

 preceding the war I saw a very considerablei number of fair 

 hunts, the points of which were almost, but not quite, as good 

 as two or three I can remember which took place in the late 

 'sixties and early 'seventies. In an article which appeared in 

 the Field, when hunting was stopped by frost, in 

 January, 1905, and in two or three subsequent numbers 

 the question was discussed at some length, and the 

 opinion was put forth that in many accounts of hunting runs 

 there was over-estimation of the actual point, due to the fact 

 that the distance of the point was arrived at by guesswoh-k 

 on the part of someone who knew the country well, but had 

 not measured the distance on the ordnance map. The map 



