SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN some years Mr. Webber successfully hunted the hounds himself, and showed very good sport, especially in his grass country. The hounds are now hunted by a professional huntsman ; George Sheppard, from the Hert- fordshire, being the huntsman in 1900. The Hertfordshire part of the Old Berke- ley country is mostly arable, and the coverts are very large. Shooting goes on extensively, and there is much pheasant preserving and breeding, but foxes are probably just as plen- tiful now as they ever were, for we find many references to their scarcity in the old maga- zines ; coverts in the Old Berkeley country being often drawn blank. Bricket Wood is several times named in these old magazines as being one of the best meets, probably on account of its being a sure find ' When there are no foxes in Bricket, there are no devils in hell.' This big wood extends to 800 acres, and has been carefully looked after by its present owner, the Hon. A. Holland Hibbert, a good all-round sports- man, who was for several years the ener- getic secretary of the hunt, succeeding Mr. Harvey Fellows, who held the office for twenty-one years. On one side of Bricket Wood, and all round Stanmore, Newberries and Scratch Wood (all joint coverts with the Hertfordshire), the country is good scent- ing grass, and many are the gallops which have been enjoyed in this part of the country. We read of a run from Newberries in 1873, thirty-five minutes 'all over grass'; and there was a great run there from Newberries to Northaw in 1898, during Mr. Webber's mastership. The briars in Newberries were so thick in the old days that Boxall the huntsman used to resort to the expedient of taking a terrier into the thickest part of the covert, and pinching his ear to make him squeak, that being the only way to induce the hounds to face the briars. Amongst other old landmarks in this coun- try indicative of the ' sport of kings ' is Gott's Monument, a tall stone obelisk near Chalfont, which was erected by George III. solely as a hunting landmark to enable him to know where he was. HARRIERS Previous to the time when regular packs of foxhounds were kept many landowners had a few hounds, with which they hunted deer, fox or hare, whichever they happened to find. After the establishment of foxhound packs, many of these private packs were still kept up, but were devoted to hunting the hare, or on rare occasions a turned out deer. Some of the Hertfordshire packs of harriers were very carefully bred, many of them from the old southern hound, and for some time were a distinct breed from the foxhound. Most of the packs of harriers in Hertfordshire were only kept for short periods during the pleasure of the particular master, who generally hunted over his own and his neighbours' land. He kept the hounds at his own expense, and took them out when he felt so inclined, the pack being in no sense a public one. Almost the oldest private pack in Hertford- shire was that kept by successive Marquises of Salisbury at Hatfield, with which the country in the Hatfield neighbourhood was hunted until 1793, when Lady Salisbury became mistress of the Hatfield Foxhounds. Squire Wortham's Harriers are famous in history. They hunted in the Royston dis- trict, and were in their day a most justly popular pack. One famous meet took place every year on ' Little Fair Day,' at the top of ' One Hill,' an eminence on Royston Heath. Hither flocked all the followers of the hunt, regular and irregular, and they were seldom disappointed in their sport. ' Old Matt,' the huntsman, and Sir Peter Soame of Heydon, the baronet, were notable figures in this hunt ; the former renowned for his stentorian voice and holloa, which could be heard, it is said, from Therfield to Royston, and the latter remarkable, and prob- ably uncomfortable, in his skin-tight breeches, which he only managed to get into at all by keeping them damp over night, and even then he could not always manage it in the morning without resorting to the expedient of sliding down the balusters. On the borders of Hertfordshire and Bed- fordshire, in the district round Biggleswade, Mr. Race's Harriers have for the last 100 years enjoyed a high reputation. That fine old sportsman, Mr. George Race of Biggies- wade, a good judge of hounds, is still alive, and still enjoys a day's hunting in his pony carriage. He is now over eighty-two years of age, and for the last sixty years has been master of these harriers. His father kept them for forty years before him. It is surely unprecedented to find a country hunted regu- larly for 100 years by father and son. Mr. Delme' kept staghounds and harriers at the Priory, Hitchin, on a scale of great magnificence. He was considered the best 357
