[57 ] 



uf them. The hundreds of Essex, (or what 

 is called Lord Petre's side of the country,) 

 are particularly good for cub hunting, on 

 account of his Lordship having preserved 

 strictly before he kept hounds himself. 

 His property is very extensive ; the wood- 

 lands extremely convenient, and always 

 moist at the bottom in a dry autumn, which 

 is a great advantage ; and you can generally 

 begin cub hunting about the 20th of Au- 

 gust. For what reason, I never could rightly 

 ascertain, but the foxes in the Roothings 

 or Rodings of Essex and part of Suffolk 

 are certainly stouter than any I have met 

 with in other countries. Stub bred foxes 

 are thought to be the stoutest, and in 

 the former places they are all bred above 

 ground ; for from Myless, near Ongar, to 

 Bigods, a covert on the other side of Dun- 

 mow, a distance of nearly twenty miles, I 

 do not know of a single earth. The en- 

 closures are large, the country flat, and you 

 can go from point to point, nine miles with- 



