THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 129 



of the craft and management of hounds was 

 of no ordinary stamp or quaUty ; and shortly 

 afterwards, out of sheer admiration for his 

 "talents," which a few^ more days had con- 

 firmed, he proposed throwing in his lot with him 

 and bearing a liberal share, but not an equal 

 one, in the maintenance of the united packs. 



They struck hands at once ; the offer being 

 accepted by Russell subject to the following 

 reservation, namely, that the hounds should 

 belong to him, and that he alone should hunt 

 and control them, terms to which the younger 

 and less experienced sportsman very sensibly 

 agreed. Accordingly, on a given day in 1827, 

 the two packs met at Five Oaks, near Oke- 

 hampton, in all about seventy couple, which 

 Russell, knowing to a handful of meal the 

 value of every hound, quickly drafted down to 

 thirty-five couple. With this lot he proposed 

 hunting fox alone, giving the country two days 

 a week, with an occasional bye-day according 

 to circumstances. 



It should be mentioned, however, that pre- 

 vious to this arrangement, sundry interchanges 

 of hounds, and especially of puppies, had taken 

 place between him and Mr. Harris ; all above 

 twenty inches going to Russell, and those under 

 that standard to the Hayne kennels. It was at 

 this period that a hound in Russell's pack, called 

 " Daphne," by Meynell's " Dreadnought," from 



