The Foxhound. 63 



was king" that the middle classes were allowed to join in the sport, 

 when the yeomen and farmers in various parts of England got up packs 

 of hounds for hunting the fox, each giving bed and board to one or more 

 couples, which they brought together on appointed hunting days. 

 These were called trencher packs, from the manner in which they were 

 billeted out on the members of the clubs. Several such packs are still 

 kept in the northern counties, and afford their supporters plenty of 

 sport. 



The first pack of foxhounds, with huntsman and whippers-in on 

 horseback, was established about the middle of the last century in 

 Dorsetshire, and hunted the Cranbourne Chase country for several 

 years, when they were purchased by Mr. George Bowes, grandfather of 

 the present Mr. John Bowes, of Streatlem Castle, after which they 

 hunted the Durham country, and initiated northern foxhunters into the 

 proper way of following the sport. 



The Brocklesby Hound list, which is one of the earliest, dates from 

 1786, the first sire recorded being Dover, by Fitzwilliam' s Rumager. 



Mr. Farquharson hunted Dorsetshire from 1806 to 1858, fifty-two 

 seasons, and had ninety couples of honnds in his kennels. He bred his 

 bitches to about 21in., and his dog hounds to 23in. high, and they 

 brought thirteen hundred and forty-seven brace of foxes to book in 

 twenty-one seasons. In the season 1842-1843 the nose tally of this 

 kennel was eighty-seven brace. 



Mr. Meynell, who hunted the Quorn for twenty-four seasons, did not 

 care to have them under 24in., and Mr. Assheton Smith, who succeeded 

 him, raised the standard to 25in. Of the old masters, the Duke of 

 Grafton, Lord Lonsdale, and Mr. Warde liked to have them very little 

 under 26in. 



Mr. Hall, the present master of the Holderness, has hunted that 

 country for thirty-five seasons without intermission, having won his 

 first spurs on the grey-tail Screveton, with Mr. Digby Legard, in 1820, 

 and has since learnt the " hang " of every field from Sledmere plantation 

 to Lammas stream, of which local tradition avers that, by sounding the 

 depth of that dainty-looking water trap, Mr. "Nimrod" Apperley had 

 the freedom of Holderness conferred on him, and that he carried away a 

 luckless Lammas minnow in his boot as his precept of initiation. Mr. 

 Hall cares more for the working qualities of his hounds than an inch 



