LONG POINTS AND THE HEYTHROP. 197 



is the only absolutely trustworthy guide, and should always 

 be consulted if there is any doubt, and my experience is that 

 the map very often reduces what has been at first thought 

 to be a ten-mile point to a point of about seven, and so 

 forth; and also it proves that it is of little use to reckon the 

 actual point of any run by the supposed distance between 

 any two places, for country roads wind almost everywhere, 

 and such distances are locally estimated by the length of the 

 road. The article to which reference has been made, and of 

 which I was the writer, need not be quoted at length, but it 

 suggested that when hounds were not so fast as they now 

 are, and fields were of smaller size, the percentage of good 

 days was higher all round, and that if hounds did not travel 

 as fast as they now do on a burning scent, they ran more 

 uniformly on moderate scenting days, and finished their runs 

 either by killing or marking to ground more frequently than 

 they now do.i This statement I made after having seen 

 hounds, several times and in more than one country, taken 

 to draw a fresh covert, while they still had a hunted fox in 

 front of them, but were only able to speak to the line very 

 occasionally, and had been reduced to what is generally spoken 

 of as walking after their fox. I referred to the fact that I had 

 tO' go back to my earliest days for the best and longest hunts I 

 had ever seen, and I gave very brief particulars of three. The 

 first of these was from Ingoe to Meldon Dyke Nook with the 

 Tynedale in 1867 (and has been mentioned in this volume), the 

 second waa the hunt from Paunoeford to Holme Lacy with 

 the Ledbury in January, 1872, and which has been deecribed, 

 and the third was with the Heythrop in December of the 

 same year (1872). Concerning this last run, of which I 

 gave the barest particulars in the article referred to, the late 

 Mr. Melliar Foster- Melliar, of North Aston Hall, for many 

 years secretary of the Heythrop Hunt, sent the following 

 letter to the Field, which appeared on February 4th, 1905 : — 

 " OLD HUNTING DAYS. 

 " Sib, — I was much interested in ' Shotley's ' article 

 * Then and Now ' in the last Field, specially in its allu- 

 sion to a fine run with the Heythrop in 1872, at which 

 I was present, and will, with your permission, give you 

 a fuller account of it drawn from my diary : — 



