THE LATE LORD LILFORD. 243 



myself." The fact is that at that date he was already suffering 

 from rheumatic gout, as he tells us (p. 4), which sometimes laid 

 him up for weeks at a time, and which, a few years later, 

 eventually confined him almost entirety to the house. To such 

 an ardent sportsman as he was, indulging at one time in Otter- 

 hunting, Grouse-shooting,' and Deer-stalking, when he rented 

 Gaick Forest, by Kingussie, in the Badenoch district,* and had 

 the run of 12,000 acres of fine stalking-ground, this enforced 

 confinement to the house must have been most irksome and 

 wearisome. And yet with what patience he supported the trial 

 is well known to those who, like the present writer, visited him 

 in his charming Northamptonshire home,f and noted with ad- 

 miration the many ways in which a well-stored mind could relieve 

 the tediousness of time. Had he lived earlier in the century, 

 Sir Walter Scott might well have had his case in view when he 

 penned his " Lay of the Imprisoned Huntsman " : — 



11 My hawk is tired of perch and hood, 

 My idle greyhound loaths his food, 

 My horse is weary of his stall, 

 Aud I am sick of captive thrall." 



The allusion to the hawk would, in his case, have been a 

 happy one, for no one was more enthusiastic on the subject of 

 falconry, no one more anxious to uphold the practice of that 

 ancient sport. As a member of the " Old Hawking Club " he set 

 a good example in this respect, and with the assistance of the 

 veteran falconer Paul Mollen, and R. Cosgrave, he trained and 

 flew many a good falcon and goshawk. Of some of these flights 

 the present writer was an eye-witness, and the treat which he 

 experienced in examining the splendid collection of living birds 

 of prey at Lilford Hall will never be effaced from his memory, t 

 Seven different kinds of Eagles, eight or nine species of Owls, 

 Buzzards, Falcons and Hawks, and a pair of Kites in an aviary, 



* An excellent photogravure of Gaick Forest Lodge is given in Grinible's 

 ' Deer Forests of Scotland,' recently published. 



| A view of Lilford Hall forms the frontispiece to vol. i. of ' The Birds 

 of Northamptonshire.' 



I On one occasion, in December, 1891, a curious flight was witnessed. 

 A goshawk named " Barbara," belonging to Lord Lilford, suddenly turned 

 from a rabbit she was chasing, and pursued and captured a Barn Owl ! 



u 2 



