The Beagle. 81 



This article, when it appeared in The Country, called forth the following 

 letter of friendly criticism, which is well worthy of a place here : 



" In his paper on the beagle, I observe that ' Corsincon ' affects to class 

 the breed into hare and rabbit beagles, with the remark that other 

 distinction than size is ' minor.' Now, it is not very often I find room 

 to differ with ' Corsincon,' but I honestly confess I do here. In the 

 first place I believe the term rabbit beagle to have been coined for a 

 half-breed between the beagle and the terrier. The beagle pur et simple 

 is, and ever has been, a hound valued essentially for its exquisite power 

 of scent ; bred, as Gervase Markham tells us, ' for delight only, being 

 of curious scents, and passing cunning in their hunting, for the most 

 part tiring, but seldom killing the prey.' The different requirements in 

 a hare hound and a ' rabbiter ' are strikingly pronounced. In the 

 former, delicacy of nose is all important ; but in the latter, where the 

 quarry is rarely found further than a stone's throw from his burrow, 

 which he can dart into before you can shout ' knife,' the less nose in 

 your dogs the better. Of course I am fully aware that beagles are 

 occasionally employed in driving woods and spinnies, as well as gorse 

 and fern brakes for rabbits, but I say there is no special breed for this 

 purpose either in size or character. 



" A pack of these half-bred small-sized terrier-beagle-rabbiters is given 

 by Stradanus in his thirty-eighth plate, with an explanatory quatrain by 

 Dufflceus : 



Callidus effosais latitare curriculus antris 

 Et generare solet. Verum persaepS catelli 

 Anglorum celeres f allunt pecus : ore prehendunt 

 Illusum : preedam venatorique ministrant. 



"Now for the second chapter of my disagreement. I maintain there 

 are as many types of beagles as there are of spaniels, mastiffs, or St. 

 Bernards. Some are rough as Jack Eussell's terriers, or Mr. Carrick's 

 otter hounds ; others as smooth and silky coated as a dachshund or a 

 toy terrier. There are strains possibly derived from a cross with the 

 foxhound showing the clean cut throat and symmetry of a Manchester 

 terrier ; and quite as familiar is the exact double of the Segusian dog 

 mentioned by Arrian in the third chapter of his ' Book on Coursing ' : 

 ' Shaggy and ugly, and such as are most high bred are most unsightly.' 

 Again, there is a very distinct variety in 'the Kerry beagle,' a 



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