A HISTORY OF KENT McKenzie, Major Yorke, Lieutenant ' Mid- shipmite ' Powell, Captain ' Rajah ' Paget, Captain ' Jack ' Hanwell, Major J. Dunlop, Captain H. du Free, R.H.A., Captain H. Ramsden.R.H.A., Captain M. Powell, R.H. A., Major D. Arbuthnot, R.F.A., 1904-5 ; and Lieutenant C. G. Mayall, R.H. A., 1905-6.' FOOT HARRIERS AND BEAGLES The Badlesmere Foot Harriers were estab- lished in 1903 to hunt the country vacated by the Blean Harriers. The pack, which is a private one and is owned by the master, the Reverend Courtney Morgan- Kirby, con- sists of 13 J couples of pure old southern hounds, all blue-mottled, and from 23 to 27 inches.^ Mr. Morgan-Kirby, writing of his pack, says : ' The southern hound has two great gifts — wonderful scent and glorious music, the latter like thunder, rising and falling in beautiful cadence ; other'ise he is a quarrel- some, obstinate, high-strung brute, always fighting in kennel, and riotous when out until he settles down to a line, when there is no getting him off it.' Mr. Morgan-Kirby founded his pack with the oldest of the pure Sandhurst blood, and has crossed entirely with three northern packs. The Badles- mere country is almost entirely hop-gardens with a little marsh-land, and is not a good scenting country. The average kill for the season is sixteen brace. The pack hunts twice a week, and the kennels are at Badles- mere Rectory near Faversham. At the Rei- gate Hound Show in 1905 Mr. Morgan- Kirby's hounds took first prize for southern hounds. The Fordcombe Foot Harriers are a sub- scription pack founded in 1870, and consist of ten couples of 1 8-inch pure harriers. They hunt the country near Tunbridge Wells on the Sussex border, and go also into that county. The kennels are at Fordcombe and the pack meets twice a week. Mr. W. Hollamby, Hickman's Farm, Fordcombe ; and Mr.' W. E. Urquhart, Castle Hotel, Tunbridge Wells, are joint masters. The Tonbridge district is hunted by the Hadlow Foot Harriers, whose territory is much the same as that once in possession of 1 Baily's Hunting Directory, 1907. ^ This is one of the few packs of pure old southern hounds now remaining, and there are said to be only three others still in existence, namely, the Penistone, the Holmfirth and Honley, and the Stannington — all in the north of England. The Penistone claims to have kept its blood pure since 1260. the Fox Bush Harriers. The pack, which is supported by subscription, was established in 1903 by drafts from the Fox Bush kennels and from other packs. Meeting days are Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the pack consists of fifteen to twenty couples of 18-inch harriers. The master, who has held office since the pack was founded, is Mr. J. P. S. Hervey of Faulkners, Hadlow, where the kennels are situated. OTTER-HUNTING Most of the rivers of Kent are well supplied with otters, and those animals are suffered to exist in these waters rather more plenti- fully perhaps than in the majority of the southern counties. But the reason for this forbearing attitude towards the otter, credit- able as it is, is to be found, one fears, simply in the fact that angling is not pursued within the county so vigorously as in other parts of the country, where trout streams are more numerous and rents for the rights of fishing proportionately high. Of late years otter-hunting has grown greatly in public favour, especially in the home counties. Kent itself, for instance, was without an established pack of otter- hounds until a few years ago, when the nucleus of the Crowhurst pack was got together by Mr. W. E. F. Cheesman. Mr. Cheesman's first intention was to buy up a few couples of ' marked ' hounds to hunt the streams and ditches around Crowhurst in the adjoining county of Sussex, and he set to work in January 1903 to collect his pack and sound the sporting people of the neighbourhood upon the idea of establishing a recognized pack. The move proved to be a popular one and in a very short time it had the support of nearly every lover of hunting in Kent and Sussex. Negotiations were entered into with Mr. Graham-Clarke, owner of the Culmstock Otter-hounds, from whom Mrs. Walter Cheesman, aunt of the prime mover in the undertaking, purchased 8J couples of hounds in February 1903 ; and by the end of that month the new pack was installed in kennels at Crowhurst. Leach, an old huntsman of the Cheriton Otter- hounds, was engaged as huntsman and Mr. H. K. Mantell of Crowhurst was appointed master. From the first the pack has been under the control of a committee, to which the hounds are lent by Mrs. Cheesman. The Crowhurst Otter-hounds held their inaugural meet under the walls of the pictur- esque castle of Bodiam in Sussex on 13 April 1903, this being the first meet of any recog- 490
