Tally Ho! Hunting Past and Present page 2

In the difficult hill-country of Cumberland and West-morland, amid glorious surroundings of lake and fell, foxes are usually hunted on foot with small but very efficient packs of hounds, the hardy race ol followers seeing, during the course of the winter, many a stout fox brought to hand. Foxes in this region are a great trouble to the farmers during the lambing season and must be destroyed. This lakeland region is, of course, the scene of John Peel's many triumphs. Hunting in his old grey coat, and with only one horse, and as often as not climbing on foot over the fells, Peel's wild "view halloos," when he found a fox, and triumphant "who-whoops " when he killed, were famous for many a long year and, enshrined in stirring verse by his friend, Woodcock Graves, will ever be remembered by all followers of hunting. One of Peel's greatest successors was old Joe Bowman, huntsman to the Ullswater pack, who only relinquished the horn a season or two back, arid accounted for innumerable foxes. His best season was that of 1922-3, when, at the age of seventy three, he killed no fewer than eighty foxes, a marvellous record for a foot-hunter in so wild and difficult a country.

Among the 220 odd packs of foxhounds now hunting in Britain it is difficult to single out from so many brilliant hunts the foremost examples. The Shires have always been regarded as the finest area of English hunting. Here are to be noted the historic packs of the Belvoir, Quorn, Fernie and Cottesmore. With these may be reckoned among the most distinguished of hunts the Pytchley, Grafton and Bicester. In the west the Duke of Beaufort's (Badminton) is still as great and as famous as it has been these hundred years. Another great west-country pack is, of course, the Blackmore Vale. Near neighbours of the Blackmore are the Cattistock and the Portman hunts, both taking high rank in hunting annals. In Scotland the Duke of Buccleuch puts into the field a magnificent pack of hounds, which show great sport. In Ireland the most famous packs of the present day are the Meath, Galway, Kildare, Kilkenny, Westmeath, Limerick and Tipperary.

Professional huntsmen have, of course, always been the backbone and mainstay of English hunting.