THE FOXHOUND. 



BY DR. M. G. ELLZEY. 



>HE article here proposed to be written on the Fox- 

 hound will have special reference to the American 

 Hound, with which the writer has had a life-long 

 familiarity. Never having been in England, he has no 

 personal familiarity with English packs, nor with English 

 methods of training and hunting. He has seen many 

 Hounds imported from English packs run in this country, 

 and has had the pleasure of hunting with gentlemen who 

 have owned and hunted packs in England. His judgment 

 of English Hounds of modern packs is based on specimens 

 he has seen run here. As to the ancient Hounds of Eng- 

 land, he knows the current statements of authors, which 

 need scarcely be copiously extracted in this place. 



It may as well now be stated that the writer is not an 

 Anglo-maniac on the one hand, nor inspired by extrava- 

 gant or irrational prejudice against that which is English 

 on the other. There is much in the history of the English 

 people so great and grand as to be beyond the reach of 

 envy. There is much also which no one should be so great 

 a fool as to besmatter with silly panegyric. There are many 

 things admirable in England which are totally absurd and 

 ridiculous in America. Out of England undoubtedly origi- 

 nally came all that is greatest and best in America, both 

 men and things less than men. 



The old English Hound seems to have been a large- 

 boned, coarse, heavy animal; and the packs of those days 

 must have caught very few foxes on fair terms. The 

 earlier importations into America, far back in colonial 

 days, were probably similar to the early English Hounds; 

 but in this country their character was soon changed, as it 



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