Norfolk, he has, with his armies in velveteen, kept fox-hunting almost off the land; in others there is little shooting and much hunting; in others again a good deal of both. In one hunt the very number who turn out, or a tactless Master, spoil the sport, while in another the field consists, in the main, of farmers who take a neighbourly delight in riding over each other’s holdings. Whenever you see a hunt where wheat and seeds are ridden over more ruthlessly than usual, you may be sure it is a farmer’s country. There are as many ways of hunting a country as there are styles of riding a horse. The object of one huntsman is to kill foxes, of another to give his field a run, of another to see hounds work. The character of the country itself decides in some degree whether hounds are to be left to themselves or handled. The great points and fine runs are for the open countries where coverts are few and foxes sufficient, but not too plentiful. In wild or rough countries, or in high-banked counties like Devonshire and Cornwall, hounds must to a great extent be made self-reliant and left to hunt themselves. But fox-hunting, to be the real thing, must have dash and go. To spend half your life standing by a gorse watching a huntsman sauntering about, evidently equally pleased if he can catch a fox within its precincts as in the open; to march leisurely from one draw to the next; to see hounds kept to the skulking fox when old Cæsar has taken the open; to follow a pottering hunt through hand-gates and across fences, when the huntsman’s course is pioneered by timber-felling and gap-making servants, is not hunting.