WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 71 



CHAPTER VII. 



IN England the mode of entering young hounds to their game 

 is simple enough. Harriers take to it instinctively, and, getting 

 their early blood with little difficulty, soon become useful workers. 

 Fox-hounds require a longer process, the two months of Sep- 

 tember and October being scarcely sufficient to steady the puppies 

 from riot and qualify them for the discipline and duty required of 

 them in the following November. Otter-hounds, however, are 

 far less readily entered than either of the former, owing, in the 

 first place, to the scent being, as I hold it to be, an artificial one 

 to hounds ; and, in the next, to the many blank days that attend 

 the sport, and to the difficulty of finding, and killing, when found, 

 that wild animal. Consequently, otter-hounds rarely become 

 clever and knowing in their work until they have had long 

 experience, and become, at least, middle-aged hounds. The 

 famous Carlisle hound Swimmer was never better than in his 

 tenth season ; and, according to Mr. Carrick, his owner, he did 

 lots of useful work up to his fourteenth year, when the veteran 

 died. 



To enter hounds on wolf in the wild forests of Brittany, 

 which, in Finisterre and Morbihan, at least, never lack that game, 

 might be considered a simple process, and one requiring little or 

 no trouble from the piqueurs charged with that service. But 

 the fact is otherwise. Not only is there a vast variety of 



