THE FOXHOUND. 201 



The shoulders (value 10) should be long and well clothed 

 with muscle, without being heavy, especially at the points. 

 They must be well sloped, and the true arm between the 

 front and the elbow must be long and muscular, but free 

 from fat or lumber. 



Chest and ~back ribs (value 10). The chest should girth 

 over thirty inches in a twenty-four-inch Hound, and the 

 back ribs must be very deep. 



The back and loin (value 10) must both be very muscu- 

 lar, running into each other without any contraction or 

 "nipping" between them. The couples must be wide even 

 to raggedness, and there should be the very slightest arch 

 in the loin, so as to be scarcely perceptible. 



The hind quarters (value 10) or propellers are required to 

 be very strong, and as endurance is of even more conse- 

 quence than speed, straight stines are preferred to those 

 much bent, as in the Greyhound. 



Elbows (value 5) set quite straight, and neither turned 

 in nor out, are a sine qua non. They must be well let down 

 by means of the long true arm above mentioned. 



Legs and feet (value 20). Every master of Foxhounds 

 insists on legs as straight as a post, and as strong size of 

 bone at the ankle being specially regarded as all-important. 

 The desire for straightness is, I think, carried to excess, as 

 the very straight leg soon knuckles over; and this defect 

 may almost always be seen more or less in old stallion 

 Hounds. The bone can not, in my opinion, be too large, but 

 I prefer a slight ankle at the knee to a perfectly straight 

 line. The feet in all cases should be round and cat-like, 

 with well-developed knuckles and strong horn, which last 

 is of the utmost importance. 



The color and coat (value 5) are not regarded as very 

 important, so long as the former is a l ' Hound color " and 

 the latter is short, dense, hard, and glossy. Hound colors 

 are black, tan and white, black and white, and the various 

 "pies" compounded of white and the color of the hare and 

 badger, or yellow, or tan. 



The stern (value 5) is gently arched, carried gaily over 



