FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES. 13 



countries in which he had hunted that " each has its own claim 

 to distinction ; some have collars, all have sport." Happy the 

 man who can take his fill of the pleasure that every phase of fox- 

 hunting affords, without discounting it by comparison with some 

 other that comes nearer to his ideal of perfect bliss. Colonel 

 Anstruther Thomson, who in his day was unrivalled as a rider 

 to hounds over any kind of country, will, if I mistake not, say 

 that he has seen quite as good sport with a rough moorland pack, 

 the Master of which never put on a scarlet coat, as with the 

 well-bred Pytchley, when Tom Firr and Dick Roake whipped 

 in to him. That would be the opinion also of many a good 

 man who has followed Jack Parker's trencher-fed hounds over the 

 wild hills of Kirby Moorside, or heard the Blencathra chorus 

 echoing among the fells of Cumberland. One need not, however, 

 go so far a-field or select the very antithesis of Leicestershire 

 sport in order to illustrate the charms that belong to unfashionable 

 fox-hunting. 



Between such extremes as the Badminton, Warwickshire, 

 Atherstone, Bramham Moor, Grafton, and Cheshire, which 

 even a Meltonian would not despise, and the obscure hunts of 

 some woodland districts wherein vaulting ambition finds little 

 scope, are many varieties of hunting country that offer attractions 

 sufficient for all modest requirements. Their fixtures are noi 

 difficult to get at, and anybody who cares for a day with sportsmen 

 who take more delight in the work of hounds than in steeple- 

 chasing need not journey very far from London. He had 

 better, however, select a country in which pheasant preserves 

 are not plentiful, or he may only experience the disappointment 

 of a blank day. At the trysting place he will find probably 



