234 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



wickets which were too narrow, and others that were badly 

 hung, others again which swung back after each horse had 

 passed through, and yet again others which were so heavy that 

 it was almost inapossible to hold them open in a high wind. It 

 would seem to be a simple thing to make hunting-wickets of 

 fair width and which opened and shut readily, but there have, 

 I think, been more failures over this class of wire antidote than 

 ail ordinary man would think possible, and I believe that the 

 man who patented a really good wicket and did not charge 

 too much for it would sell a great number. 



Wire is, as I have said, the greatest change which the 

 country, judged from a hunting standpoint, has known in my 

 time, and I am inclined to think that the increase in the size 

 of many fields is another of the great changes. I cannot, as 

 a matter of course, speak of the numbers which were seen with 

 a whole host of packs before the war, and I actually know of 

 certain packs which have a smaller following than they had 

 fifty years ago; but where this has occurred there have been 

 reasons for the decline, and in one country which I know well, 

 the smaller fields are principally due to the fact that a very 

 large area of the original country has been given up, owing 

 to the increase of industrialism, and that the hunting residents 

 in that part of the country have gone further afield for their 

 sport. There are, no doubt, many who greatly dislike hunt- 

 ing in, or even near, an industrial district, or in a country that 

 savours of suburbanism, or is full of thickly-populated villages. 

 I very much dislike those conditions myself, and greatly prefer 

 a semi-wild country, in which hounds can work out a line with 

 little chance of their fox being headed, and where those who 

 follow hounds have the country to themselves. This may be 

 a selfish view, but my feeling is that a crowd at a meet is 

 desirable, as also are foot- followers of the real sporting sort, 

 who follow hounds because they really appreciate what is 

 going on; but for the real business of hunting great crowds 

 of people on foot are terribly in the way, though I can think 

 of exceptional occasions, such as when a certain covert is drawn 

 on certain New Year's Day meets, in which, when hounds were 

 put in, there would be groups of pedestrians at all the cross- 

 rides, and literally thousands on the high ground above the 

 covert'. This was near to, but not exaotJy in, a, colliery 



