THE CUKATE IN SPEING. 195 



as open as the one nearly at an end — have been so con- 

 stantly worried that they have lost all attractions for a 

 fox ; and, in a March so lamblike as this, a warm farrow, 

 or at most a hedgebottom, offers quite as comfortable 

 quarters. Then, except in abnormal and unsettled weather, 

 the heat is likely to be too great or the cold too severe, 

 the soil too dusty and the turf too hard. The very air, 

 redolent of flowers, seems repellent to foxhunting. AVe 

 are easily discouraged and readily become slack — and 

 very probably miss the sport that comes when least 

 expected. This year the foxhuiiter and the farmer 

 (whose interests are in reality indissoluble) are not treated 

 with equal indulgence. The latter complains that his 

 land is so wet he cannot, as he terms it, "get on it"; 

 while the former, finding it still excellent riding, is apt to 

 imagine that this is the summum honum. desired by all 

 parties, and congratulates himself only too loudly. 



Friday, the 7tli instant, illustrated many of the dis- 

 advantages and difficulties of j\Iarch, but a run of the 

 highest class was the outcome of Monday, the 10th, 

 when the Quorn were at Widmerpool New Inn, on the 

 Nottinghamshire border of their country. The field conse- 

 quently was not of the same giant proportions as on the 

 previous Friday in tlieir Leicester district. Yet in this 

 comparatively wild region (may I be permitted so to 

 term it, without offence to those whose presence is so 

 powerful in mitigating its savagery?) we are [accustomed 

 to go a hunting only with a few, and look upon it, indeed, 

 as affording the one weekly escape from a crowd. Now 

 there must have been a hundred or two to see The Curate 



