LONG POINTS AND THE HEYTHROP. 215 



oig covert, named Scales Park, in tJie northern part of the 

 Puckeridge country, and I always liked the look of this place; 

 but foxes were scarce there in those days of mange, and I 

 never saw any good sport from it. By training to Great 

 Chesterford I saw both the Newmarket and Thurlow and the 

 Cambridgeshire an odd time or two, but with the former 

 pack there was then a scarcity of foxes, which made a long 

 draw almost inevitable. "With the Cambridgeshire — Mr. 

 George Evans was the Master then — I was more lucky, and 

 remember one nice day of short but very pretty hunts. What 

 chiefly struck me in the Puckeridge country — and I suppose 

 the position is much the same now — was the cordiality which 

 existed between the farmers and the hunt. I hardly like 

 to mention names, because it is five and twenty years since 

 I saw the Puckeridge in the field, and I am afraid I have 

 forgotten the names of some whoise faces I can remember. 

 But the Messrs. Sworder — very regular attendants at Peter- 

 borough — Mr. Frank Stacey, and Mr. Martin Burls occur 

 to me, and these and others whose names I am not sure about 

 form a considerable backbone of what I have always thought 

 may claim to be one of the greatest hunts in the kingdom. 

 The influence of those I have mentioned was great, their know- 

 ledge of hunting and their keenness intense, and they worked 

 hand in glove with the covert owners and shooting tenants — 

 which latter body are always numerous in ©very country 

 within fifty miles of London. In fact, the farmers of the 

 Puckeridge help to maintain the traditions of a great hunt 

 which has been in existence nearly 200 years, and which 

 during that long period has profited especially through the 

 efforts of three particular Masters. The first of these was 

 Mr. Sampson Hanbury, Master from 1801 to 1832; the second 

 Mr. Nicholas Parry, Master from 1838 to 1872, and the third 

 the present Master, who is now in his twenty-seventh 

 season, Mr. Hanbury was chiefly responsible for settling the 

 hunt and its boundaries on the present lines; Mr. Parry 

 showed great sport, and more than maintained the standard 

 which Mr. Hanbury's mastership had accomplished; and Mr. 

 Barclay — and since 1910 his son. Major Maurice Barclay, who 

 is joint Master of the pack with his father — have brought the 

 hunt to a pitch of perfection which says a great deal not only 



