The Fox Again
The Horse and His Schooling. By Lt.-Col. M. F. lieTaggartt
D.S.O. (Methuen. Is. 6t1.) Try Back. By A. Henry Hi on, M.F.H. 25s.)
COLONEL MCTAGGART'S is a didactic book, as its name implies, and it is, without • qualification, first-rate. No one after reading his book carefully can fail to know all that need be known about training and riding, except of course the actual physical feel of things, and the knowledge that only experience can bring. Colonel McTaggart tells about the horse's character, what he should look like when doing various things, and how to make him do them. Every important movement is dealt with, from suppling the neck, turning on the forehand or hock, changing leg on the canter, to jumping; and where necessary extremely sound instruction in riding is given. It is well illustrated with freely treated explanatory drawings by Miss Winifred Roberts.
Didactic in a different way is Mr. Edwards' Wiles of the Fos,. which tells us of the author's own experience of tricks he has seen the fox play, and we no longer wonder that only one fox in five hunted is killed. It is a slight book, but since it is illustrated by Mr. Edwards its value is less in the text, charm- ing as it is, than in the drawings. His other book, which contains photographs and reproductions of old portraits besides his own drawings is a more imposing work. Leaving out some of the more famous foxhunters, such as Hugo Meynell, Osbaldestone and others "because in late years so much has been published about them," he treats of some twenty-five men, from Thomas Coke, first Earl of Leicester (M.F.H. 1772-1810) to Masters who are still alive and hunting ; but he does not deal exclusively with Masters famous either for hunting or hound-breeding, for we are told something about fell huntsmen such as Joe Bowman (this chapter is by Mr. Richard Clapham), and sporting parsons, such as Jack Russell and Charles Kingsley (a chapter in which we may deplore a sneer at the good Bishop Berkeley). The chapters are some- what uneven, for Mr. Edwards does not always give himself enough space, and it is noticeable that the longest in the book, that by Lady Apsley on Lord Bathurst, is the most satis- factory, and the shortest, that on the Rev. E. A. Milne, the least.
But if we want to know about Mr. Milne, we can turn to the book written by his successor to the Cattistock mastership, Mr. Higginson, whose book is a charming reminiscence of thirty-eight years of hunting, and may be recommended to the general reader as well as to the hunting man. Mr. Higginson is earning fame in England, but like a neighbouring Master, Mr. Isaac Bell, he is an American, famous in his own country not only for his performance in the field, but for the enormous benefits he has conferred on the hound-loving community by his breeding. Much of his book, therefore, is concerned with America, and extremely interesting it is ; but not less interest- ing are his relations with English packs and masters before he became one of the latter himself, and to judge from his book one of the most genial and likeable, as enthusiastic over men as he is over hounds.
It is much to be regretted that Sir Edward Curre is not still alive to read the appreciations of the white Welsh hounds that he bred against so much opposition, by Mr. Edwards, Mr. Higginson, and, it seems, by Mr. Watson, for the most sagacious and steadfast of the hounds in his amusing " novel " is clearly one of that breed. Mr. Watson's account of the Little Muchley run after the Christmas meet is one of the very few funny books about hunting which is really funny as well as showing a very intimate knowledge of all that has to do with the chase and its personalities. His idea of describing (or as often as not misdescribing) the run by means of two observers in a balloon, who go to work after the manner of the gentlemen who describe football matches to us over the wireless, is extremely neat, and comes off not only as part of the story, but as a highly entertaining spoof of the B.B.C. broadcasters. His book is illustrated by a map with squares (like the football field), and by some lively, well-observed sketches by Mr. Gilbert Holiday.
Remains only Mr. Duncan Fife's book of sporting verse, which, to say truth, is neither better nor worse than the usual run of such things. Most hunting or sporting verse seems somehow as though one had read it before, a little better done, in the old favourities ; it is very pleasant, quite skilful, but it seems to lack the old fervour, or any sense of discovery, and this book is no exception to the rule. It is, however, illustrated by Mr. Cecil Aldin, who although he has seemed to know every- thing about the appearance of hounds, horses, and foxes for so many happy years, seems always able to discover more.
BONAMY Doinuim.
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