WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 127 



CHAPTER XII. 



IT has already been mentioned in a former chapter how difficult 

 it is, in the deep and rocky forests of Lower Brittany, to check 

 riot and to keep hounds steady and together on the game which 

 it is the object of the day's chasse to pursue. Hence the 

 necessity of the piqueur and lime-hound in the first place, and 

 of the relay system afterwards ; by which, the right game being 

 harboured and roused, the oldest and staunchest hounds are 

 laid on ; then, as the chase waxes hotter and hotter, the less 

 steady are thrown in ; then the rest of the pack, in batches, 

 according to their degree of steadiness and love of the game 

 pursued ; and thus the chance of change is greatly diminished, 

 even in a pack of hounds accustomed to run every beast of 

 the forest from a roe-deer to a wild boar ; and that, too, in the 

 trackless depths of a Brittany cover. 



The use of the lime or lyme-hound can be traced to a 

 classic age ; and several authors of antiquity, both Greek and 

 Latin, have recorded his characteristics so minutely, that his 

 identity, in point of use, with the Breton limier of the present 

 day, is beyond all doubt. The lymer, so called from the lyam 

 or leash in which he was led, was, from the nature of his employ- 

 ment, necessarily mute \ and, as muteness in a well-bred hound 

 is rarely met with, this indispensable pioneer was always a 



