WAR TIME AND AFTER. 255 



hunt. And I may mention some of these counts, which are 

 to some extenti proof that fields have fallen off. The first 

 refers toi the Puckeridge, about, which I find that, I counted 

 sixty ladies following hounds one day in 1898. The next is 

 three years later, and is to the eSect that when. Lord Zetlands 

 (as they were then) were drawing a covert on Sir W. Wilson 

 Todd's estiate at Halnaby there were seventy-one scarlet coats 

 visiblei, these including the hunt staff. Another count, — which 

 was by noi means oompletei — was taken with the Cheshire on the 

 Saturday alter the Grand National, when, hounds were hunt- 

 ing in the Forest and when one would have thought that 

 the attraotion of the last day of the Liverpool Spring Meeting 

 would have caused the field toi be small. Nevertheless, I 

 counted 214 horses as hounds moved off from the meet, and I 

 know I did not get. them all. With the Tynedale in the f-pring 

 of the present year (1921) I counted over 190 horses at a Whit- 

 tington meet, but there had been a ball overnight and no' doubt 

 this increased the field. On that particular day no fewer than 

 seven Mastiers ol hounds were present.. The biggest, field I 

 ever siaiW wa.s with the Percy sometime in the 'seventies. But 

 the then Prince of Wales wag staying at Alnwick Castlei, and 

 hunting people had swarmed to the place, literally in thou- 

 sands. Indeed, the local newspapers put the number of 

 riders at 3,000, and -though I think this was a very liberal 

 estimate, I quite think that half that number was present. 

 The biggest ordinary field I ever siaw was with the Quorn 

 during Lord Lonsdale's mastership. I do not remember wher© 

 the meet wa.s, but it wag in their best oonnt.ry, and I have a 

 recollection of a crowded lane of horses, kept there while 

 hounds drew a, little spinney a field away. After a suffocating 

 ten minutes a whistle was blown, and then everyone tried to' 

 geti out of the lane. There was practically no room to jump, 

 but when I got a chancei my horsei pushed through the fence, 

 and a moment later I could see galloping horses everywhere, 

 several rather small fields being covered with horses, and not a 

 hound visible. Indeed I followed on blindly for quite ten 

 minutes, and then caught sight, of the pack on rising ground 

 nearly half a mile ahead. Later on that same day, about 

 three o'clock, a field of several hundred had been reduced to 

 something like seventy, and I saw a beautiful hunt. 



