68 BRITISH DOGS 



and then, calling others together, rouses the game by barking. The 

 principles of breeding were sufficiently well known to the hunting 

 men of Greece and Italy to assure us that this special superiority 

 of nose would be propagated and improved by mating the animals 

 most distinguished in that quality in fact, the first principle in 

 breeding, and one that lies on the surface, staring the most un- 

 observant in the face, that like produces like, would certainly be 

 acted on, and so the earliest steps be taken in fixing a special type 

 of hound, the particular quality of which we see inherited now by 

 many allied breeds. 



No doubt at the date at which the " Book of Huntynge " was 

 written, and for a long time previous, English hounds were being 

 modified by crosses from imported dogs brought in by the Norman 

 conquerors from France, some varieties of them having originally 

 come from the East , and the slow hunting hounds of that day 

 have, by various commixture, produced for us the varieties we 

 now recognise. 



Dr. Caius mentions the Bloodhound as " the greatest sort which 

 serves to hunt, having lips of a large size, and ears of no small 

 length.'' In Turberville's " Book of Hunting " there are a number 

 of dogs portrayed, all of the hound type, and with true hound ears ; 

 whereas, in the " Book of St. Albans," printed a century earlier, the 

 dogs represented have much smaller ears, and thrown back, as the 

 dogs are seen straining on the slips, greyhound-like. Turberville 

 has a good deal to say about hounds. If he could be credited, the 

 progenitors of our modern dogs originally came from Greece, and 

 the first of them that reached this country were landed at Totnes. 



It was the custom in Turberville's time to range the dogs accord- 

 ing to colour ; of these, white and fallow, white spotted with red, 

 and black, were most esteemed. White spotted with black or dun 

 was not so much valued. The best of the fallow dogs were held 

 to be those with their hair lively red, with white spots on the fore- 

 head, or a white ring round the neck ; and of these it is said : " Those 

 which are well joynted and dew-clawed are best to make Blood- 

 hounds," clearly showing, as passages from all the old writers could 

 be quoted to do, that the term Bloodhound was applied to the 

 dog because of the work set him, and that, in fact, where hounds 

 are spoken of the Bloodhound is included. That the work of this 

 hound was varied that he was used as a Lymehound, as well as 

 in tracking wounded deer and deer-stealers, sheep-stealers, and other 

 felons, even so late as two centuries ago is clear from Blome's in- 

 structions in his work "The Gentleman's Recreation" (1688) : "To 

 find out the Hart or Stag, where his harbour or Lare is, you must 

 be provided with a Bloodhound, Draughthound, or Sluithound, 

 which must be led in a Liam ; and, for the quickening his scent, 

 it is good to rub his nose with vinegar." 



