British Dogs. 



that, then, even among the French, appellations will differ. Thus, a 

 certain school will call 16in. bassets petits chiens courants, and will deny 

 them the right of being called bassets, being, in their estimation, too 

 high on the leg. I agree with them. The characteristics of bassets d 

 jambes droites are : a somewhat shorter face than those with crooked 

 legs ; ears shorter, but broader, and very soft usually ; neck, a shade 

 longer ; stern carried straight up ; good loins ; shorter bodies, very level 

 from shoulder to rump. Whereas the other two breeds are invariably a 

 shade lower at shoulder than at the stern. Some show the os occipitis well 

 marked ; others are more apple-headed ; the hair is coarse on the stern, the 

 feet are straight and compact, knees well placed, thighs muscular and well 

 proportioned ; in short, they are an elegant looking, dashing, and rather 

 taking breed as a lot. But in work there is a world of difference. The 

 crooked-legged ones go slow and sure, the straight-legged ones run into 

 the defect of fast hounds, i.e., they go too fast occasionally for their 

 noses ; they are not either quite so free from riot ; but wherever pretty 

 fast work is required, and when the covert requires some doing in the 

 way of jumping drains and scrambling over boulders, &c., then they will 

 carry the day. They are chiefly used for large game in pretty large 

 coverts, and run in small packs. For fast fun, exercise, and music they 

 will do ; but for actual shooting commend me to the basset ajambes torses. 

 With such a little hound, if he knows you and understands your ways, 

 you are bound to bag, and alone he will do the work of ten ordinary 

 hounds, and, in truth, there are few things more exciting to the sports- 

 man than to hear his lonely crooked-legged companion merrily, slowly, 

 but surely, bringing his quarry to his gun. Some of the pleasantest 

 moments of my life have been thus spent ; and once, having shot two 

 wolves that had been led out to me by a basset d janibes torses, I fairly 

 lifted up the little beggar to my breast and hugged him, and I called him 

 a pet and a dear, and all that sort of bosh, and I thought that in all my 

 life I had never seen a pluckier and cleverer little fellow. 



" In short, there is no doubt that for purposes of shooting, bassets, of 

 whatever breeds, are pre-eminently excellent. They run very true, and 

 are more easily taught the tricks of game than full-sized hounds. This I 

 have found out by experience. The average large hound, once in 

 full swing on a scent, runs on like a donkey. But bassets seem to 

 reason, and when they come to an imbroglio of tracks, purposely left by 



