The Moo7's 55 



short turf wall, without any " wings," or other later im- 

 provements, but they are most interesting, as being 

 probably quite the earliest that were ever constructed. 

 The Bishop of Durham was one of those Prince Bishops 

 who ruled over a See as large as a small kingdom, and 

 reigned over it with almost a regal sway. Colonel Hildyard, 

 to whom Horsley afterwards belonged, continued to " drive," 

 but when his nephew succeeded at his decease in 1854, 

 the practice was discontinued until the " revival " that 

 occurred some years later. Horsley seems to have been 

 a famous sporting place, even in the times of the Eomans, 

 for quite recently a very perfect altar was unearthed in 

 the vicinity, the inscription on which states that it was 

 erected by the Pro-Consul on the occasion of killing a 

 famous wild boar on these moors. 



When we were there pole-cats were still quite common, 

 and indeed their tracks could be seen in the snow every 

 winter, in the low country, as far as Kirby Hall. A 

 keeper on my father's estate captured one in the late 

 " sixties," and thinking he would improve his strain of 

 ferrets by a cross with it, he put the strap of a " ferret- 

 band " round its neck and tied it to the leg of the table 

 in his bedroom ! The noise it made trying to escape 

 kept him awake first of all, but at last he fell asleep, 

 only to find, when he awoke in the morning, that the 

 pole-cat had bitten through the string, and had then eaten 

 a hole through the door and escaped. 



As there were no hounds that hunted the moors at 

 Horsley, Mr. Hildyard used to have the foxes caught 

 alive in a box-trap, and sent down to his other place in 

 the Bedale country, Hutton Bonville, near Northallerton. 

 One old dog-fox was thus captured, and sent there no 



