INTELLIGENCE 89 



and it may still be said that the two best and most 

 instructive books on the "Sport of Kings" are Beck- 

 ford's Thoughts on Hunting, and Handley Cross, 

 read in conjunction with each other. Then come, 

 perhaps, Mr. Romford's Hounds, and Sponge's 

 Sp07'ting Tour, coupled with Whyte - Melville's 

 Riding Recollections. The last is the best book on 

 the riding and the handling, etc., of a horse ever 

 written, and its two chapters on riding to hounds 

 cannot be beaten. The Life of a Fox, by T. Smith 

 (Arnold), is also excellent and most instructive. It 

 gives and explains hunting language and terms, 

 pictures of a fresh and beaten fox, and of a good 

 and bad hound. There are of course many more 

 works on, or introducing, the subject which the 

 young idea can read at his leisure, but if he reads, 

 and re-reads, so as to understand and thoroughly 

 take in the knowledge and the hints contained in 

 the half-dozen books mentioned above, he may hunt 

 till he is a hundred years old and find that he 

 cannot add one iota to any of them. 



Maps. — This is very simple now-a-days, there 

 are hunting maps of every district. It is best, 

 however, for Diana's soldier pupil to have the one- 

 inch Ordnance map-sheets of the district he is going 

 to hunt in, mounted in a convenient size for his 

 pocket. He should then himself mark in the meets 

 (as he goes to them) with small red dots, and add 

 the principal woods and coverts in green as he 

 learns their position. In this way he will uncon- 

 sciously learn to read a map. 



