send into the market young horses with the capability of turning into first-class seasoned hunters. It is regrettable to think of the number of young horses which are spoilt in the very beginning of their existence as hunters, either from bad handling or from want of an immediate cultivation of the inherent powers of leaping. A consideration of these facts seems to show that one of the so-called reasons against thoroughbreds as hunters is altogether unsound. It may be taken that as two or three year olds they will be quite as carefully handled as halfbred horses if not more so, and their jumping training begins-if they do not go through a regular course of the training stable-very nearly as soon as that of their less distinguished kinsfolk. It is the general opinion,' says Colonel Cook, in a quotation in the Duke of Beaufort's work, that thoroughbred horses cannot leap so well as cock-tails. I think otherwise; and if you will try the experiment by taking ten young horses of the former ' and ten of the latter sort, I am convinced you will find the 'thoroughbred ones to have the advantage, and naturally to clear their fences with more ease to themselves. . . . What a superiority has a thoroughbred one in every respect-above all, in speed, bottom, and wind!' Horse for horse, a thoroughbred is an animal of more endurance and swiftness than a halfbred, he is as fine a fencer as any halfbred, and his pace is certainly greater. It is true that often they have not bone enough for heavy men, and have thus been systematically overlooked by many, but size in a thoroughbred is somewhat deceptive. The question is fairly and clearly discussed by the authors of the Badminton book on Hunting, and the opinions of the highest authorities, from Nimrod to Whyte-Melville, are quoted and contrasted. The very sensible conclusion at which the modern authors arrive is best given in their own words: Perhaps,' they write (p. 172), after all is said on either side, the safest verdict to fall back upon (to give?) is this, that whereas a halfbred horse cannot be made use of in the great grass countries, a thoroughbred horse can be made use of anywhere.' We have no hesitation in endorsing this opinion, and in expressing our preference for the thoroughbred horse, because we are convinced that in any country it is of the highest importance to have a horse of fine constitution and speed. It means that more work can be obtained from him, that there is less stable trouble, and that when a good run does occur the sportsman is sure that he has an animal which is equal to the strain on his pace and his endurance. But the thoroughbred hunter,

except for feather weights, must be characterised by fine breeding and plenty of bone--a union, it must fairly be admitted, which one may often go far to find. Such a one is the best hunter which can be had. He is an animal of untold value in the hunting field, he can keep a good place when he has reached it, and he can recover lost ground when the start has been bad, or some awkward and crowd-collecting obstacle has caused a delay in the chase. He can be pressed at the top of his speed without in consequence making a mistake at a fence, or tumbling over it from sheer exhaustion. He is quick and intelligent at his fences, and if he has powerful hind quarters, which are so necessary for every first-rate hunter, he will propel himself over any kind of obstacle like a ball from a catapult. Apparently thoroughly ridden out at the end of a long run, he will regain his vivacity as he wends his homeward way, and when he has been put by he will eat up his supper with avidity, and be full of play on the morrow. It may be said that there is something of idealism in this delineation, but experience shows it to be true.

We have mentioned bad feeding in hunters. The cause of it is in most cases exhaustion; consequently the horse with the best constitution, and which can go through a hard day, or indeed an ordinary day, with the most ease to himself, will be the least subject to this troublesome complaint, and will at the end of the season have done more work and be less the worse for it than a horse equally powerful in frame, but less strong in constitution, and with less capacity to endure fatigue. Most men do not regard sales of bloodstock or of racing studs as the places at which hunters are to be found, and it may fairly be admitted that a three-year-old who has been in training, and is found perhaps not fast enough for the turf, should be given a thorough rest in order to enable him to thicken out and mature before he can be ised as a hunter. It is for this reason that thoroughbreds are considerably overlooked. On the one hand they are not bought when young by the very numerous class of sportsmen who like to buy readymade hunters. On the other hand, the farmer has either young stock, which he has bred himself, of which he has to dispose, or he buys a likely-looking colt from a neighbour. When he does so, of one thing we may be pretty sure, that he will buy a half bred horse with plenty of bone. Were farmers to be more inclined to buy young and suitable thoroughbreds, they would often do much better than by breeding half bred horses, mating ill-matched dams and sires in a very haphazard fashion. But the faster hounds run,

and the larger the fields become, the more necessary will pace be in the hunter, and this is most likely to be found in wellbred horses. There are also evidently on the increase throughout England more systematic attempts to make use of thoroughbred sires, even though the mares are halfbred, as is almost invariably necessary for the production of fifteenstone hunters. Yet unintelligent matchings of this sort by those not acquainted with the best strains of blood for the purpose are very apt to end in failure, so that there is still a great deal to be said in favour of buying thoroughbreds, at two or three years old, which have the appearance of turning into hunters, rather than indulging in the lottery of breeding, however valuable the prizes which are sometimes drawn.

The increase in the number of hunt steeplechases, which have now become a well-recognised and general form of sport in the spring, is also likely in time to affect the characteristics of hunters by inducing a greater appreciation of thoroughbred horses. The danger is lest these races should degenerate into contests between nominal hunters. For as often as not a hunter has obtained his certificate from a master of hounds, not on account of his work across country, but to rid the field of the presence of a tiresome couple. The main object of all promoters of these meetings, as well as of the Grand National Hunt Committee, should be to encourage genuine hunters. Therefore, the more completely these races. are confined to local horses, the better it will be for the breed of hunters, as well as for the increase of true sport. More encouragement, too, should be given at these meetings to the owners of weight-carrying hunters, because when the weights carried are from eleven stone seven to thirteen stone the slower and stronger horse has absolutely no chance at all. To test a good hunter there is nothing like a four-mile point-to-point steeplechase; but as the amusement of the spectators has to be considered, the regular meeting has come into vogue. We touch on this subject here only for the purpose of indicating its possible bearing on the breed of hunters; to go into it in detail would be fitting rather for a review of the Badminton book on Racing and Steeplechasing than for one which is mainly concerned with hunting.

It is a little surprising that the authors of the Badminton work on Hunting pass over cub-hunting without remark. It has now, there can be no doubt, become a more important feature in the sport of the season than it used to be. The old notion of cub-hunting, that it was useful for entering young hounds, getting the old ones into condition, and

spreading cubs about the country, has been somewhat lost sight of. It is now rather an informal and preliminary season. That masters of hounds have had to accept this view of it, whether they like it or not, can scarcely be doubted, because the master of hounds has to study the wishes of the subscribers and supporters of the hunt; so that the master can no more dispense with a regular field in October than with a larger one in December. The subscriber expects to have a card sent to him with the cub-hunting fixtures, and there are many who will go a long distance for a gallop through the woodlands in the early morning. This is not surprising; men in these days like to get the most they can for their money. There are many who without hunting are without an occupation. Half a loaf, says the proverb, is better than no bread; and cub-hunting is better than no hunting at all to the man whose main object in life is to follow hounds. Then, again, there is the more purely riding sportsman, to whom the cub-hunting season is a time for trying young horses, getting hunters into hard condition, and himself into the bargain. The field generally is less severe in October than November, and the man who brings out a horse in the former month to school is regarded with a more favourable eye than in the regular season, when most men put him down as a nuisance.

As we pointed out earlier in this paper, the gamekeeper has no particular love for the fox-hunter, nor in many instances has his master. In no very willing spirit he preserves, or makes a show of preserving, foxes. If he can point to a certain number of litters of cubs, he considers that he has fulfilled his duty, and the chief wish of his heart then is that they may be killed off as soon as possible, or take up their abode in his neighbours' covers. The sooner, therefore, the hounds are run through his woods, the better pleased he is; it matters not to him whether foxes become scarce later in the season. He has shown a fair number of cubs; if they are all killed off before the spring, that is no business of his. Thus urged on by two different classes, and nothing loth, the modern M.F.H. sets vigorously to work during the cub-hunting season, and so there is quite a competition among the various packs as to which shall show the largest number of masks by the beginning of November. Seasoned foxes

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are as necessary to sport as experienced hounds,' says the author of The Meynellian Science, or Fox-hunting upon System.' But this sound old-fashioned advice is not followed in modern cub-hunting, the abuse of which is largely

the cause of bad sport during the regular season. If foxes are unmercifully killed down during the cub-hunting season, the number kept at the end of the regular season is proportionately lessened; hence the seasoned foxes for the following season are few, and so bad sport is a certain consequence. The excuse of the necessity of blood for the hounds is often put forward, but there is a good deal of nonsense in this plea. It is by no means certain that blood makes hounds hunt better. Deerhounds for example, which as a rule are never blooded, hunt just as well as foxhounds, and the destruction of cubs, which is partly a sacrifice to this theory, is a sure blow to the sport of the season. Murdering foxes, says the writer whom we have just quoted, is a most absurd 'prodigality;' much more so is it in these days than in those of Mr. Meynell. There is also this to be said against the killing of many cubs: it causes the number of them which must be reared to be larger, because those which are sacrificed in September and October would go far to supply half the sport of the proper hunting season. We will give an example of this absurd prodigality. Imagine a cub rattled about a big wood for some time, and then followed through another large wood to one where he is again hunted for half an hour or more. He then takes refuge in a little outlying spinny in a deep bottom, where he is surrounded on all sides by the field; at last he makes a desperate bolt for the big wood, but the hundred yards between the two are more than he can cover, and he is pulled down just as he reaches the fringe of underwood. The scent had been bad for a long time, the hounds might over and over again have legitimately been taken home. Here was a cub well hunted which later on in the season would certainly have shown good sport; but instead of being spared he is killed in a manner which by no possibility could give sport. Then, when later in the regular season these woods are drawn blank, and men grumble about the scarcity of foxes, it may occur to some that a little less prodigality of this kind in the cub-hunting season might be the means of affording better sport when the majority of the hunt are present. Neither is the farmer usually pleased with overmuch cubhunting it breaks his fences while his cattle are in the fields, it comes upon him unexpectedly, and he has a feeling that more than a legitimate use is made of his land.

That cub-hunting is a pleasant pastime on a bright October morning may at once be admitted. The woods are then in their brightest livery, more beautiful in their varied colours