THE SCOTCH DEERHOUND. 183 



two dogs with me until he should return the next spring. 

 He never returned, and I became the owner of a line horse 

 and two excellent Deerhounds. I hunted those dogs after- 

 foxes, lynx, wildcats, and deer until worn out by old age 

 and hard work. They would run with a pack of Foxhounds 

 that were kept in the vicinity as though trained with them 

 from birth. They would trail with them, and whenever the 

 fox appeared in a field, they would at once leave the pack, 

 run by sight, and catch the fox. There was no sport that 

 they enjoyed more. 



The ease with which a Deerhound may be educated to 

 do a certain part of any sport is remarkable. In a portion 

 of the Pocoivo Mountains, north of the Blue Range, deer 

 were at that time plentiful. Much of the country is very 

 rough, and it was impossible for the Deerhounds to catch a 

 deer that was not wounded; so we used to take a pair of 

 slow trail-hounds to drive the deer into and across the 

 valleys, and would then take the Deerhounds into the val- 

 leys to sight the deer as they came out. The second time 

 we went there with our dogs was in November, 1856. We 

 arrived about daylight, and our trail-dogs struck a track 

 and gave tongue before we had our team unhitched from 

 the wagon. 



While we were putting out the team, the Deerhounds 

 got away from us, and we supposed they had followed the 

 yelping trail-hounds. We ran to the valley below, some 

 half-mile away, as fast as we could, knowing that the game 

 would cross there. When we got within sight of the runway, 

 to our great astonishment we found Bevis and Leda at their 

 posts, eager for a sight of the game. When I say that on 

 our previous hunt, one month earlier, we had always kept 

 collar and leash on these dogs, and that they caught on 

 that hunt but two deer at this point, the remarkable 

 sagacity ^of the Deerhound may be realized. Had the Fox- 

 hounds started on a trail in the Blue Mountains, the Deer- 

 hounds would have gone with them to catch the fox; but 

 not so here. They had been here once on entirely different 

 business, and so well did they remember it that they imme- 



