WAR TIME AND AFTER. 257 



Some time during March of that year (1920) I went to judge 

 at the puppy show of Major David Daviea' hounds at Llan- 

 dinam, in Montgomeryshire, and for the first time saw a pack, 

 about three parts Welsh in blood, in the field. I had seen 

 these hounds in kennel on a previous visit, and had seen the 

 veterans of the pack hunting otters, but this was my first 

 chanoe of seeing the foxhound pack. The day after I arrived 

 the meet was at Welshpool, some twenty miles from the kennel. 

 Hounds were sent on by motor-van, horses by the Caanbrian 

 Railway, and we motored to the meet. Some thirty riders 

 formed the field, and hounds were taken to a hanging wood 

 some two miles from the town. They quickly found a fox, 

 and after some ringing work went away, the line for two or 

 three miles being parallel with a branch of the Shropshire 

 Union Canal . I had a first-rate opportunity of seeing the pack 

 at work, because, for a time, they came to my side of a stream, 

 Major Davies and the field being held up by the stream — which 

 was at the bottom of a thick dingle — and, I think, by wire. 

 I was much impressed by the manner in which hounds cast 

 themselves, and worked for the line on a very moderate scent, 

 buti after about ten minutes hounds reorossed the dingle and I 

 wag thrown out. 



I shall have more to say about the working abilities of 

 Major Davies' hounds later on, but here I may mention that 

 Llandinam is a veritable home of sport, and that hunting holds 

 the first plaioe in its Master's aflfeotions. Major Davies is, in 

 fact, as great an enthusiast as I ever met, and at the moment 

 he is not only hunting his own large country, but is joint 

 Master with Mr. Roger Plowden of the United, Master of the 

 Hawkstone Otter Hounds, and the owner of the Montgomery- 

 shire Beagles, which axe managed by a, committee of the Mont- 

 gomeryshire Recreation Society, but are kennelled at Plasi 

 Dinam, where also are the kennels of the foxhound pack and 

 the otter hounds. As many of my readers are aware. Major 

 Davies is also a member of Parliament, and this means tliat 

 when the House is sitting his sport is much curtailed. He 

 leaves town, as a rule, late on Friday evening, and travels by 

 a fast train to Shrewsbury, whence he motors the forty odd 

 miles to his home. On Saturdays he carries the horn, both 

 with foxhounds in winter and otter hounds in summer, 



