THE BLOODHOUND 



in "Blind Harry's Life of William Wallace," the Scottish patriot, 

 as the following lines, which have been so frequently quoted by 

 writers on the Bloodhound, show : 



About the ground they set on breid and length 

 A hundredth men, chairgit in arms strang, 

 To keep a hunde that they had them amang, 

 In Gillisland there was that Brachell bred, 

 Sikyr of scent, to follow them that fled. 

 Sae was she used in Eske and Liddesdale, 

 Quhile she gat bluid nae fleeing might avail. 



And even if the above is not the first mention of the subject, 

 it is at least a very early one. Again: 



But this sleuth Brache, quilke sekyr was and keen, 

 On Wallace fute followit sae felloune fast 

 Quilk in thar sicht thai prochit at the last. 



In the traditions of the peasantry of the West of Scotland many 

 stirring stories of the " hair-breadth 'scapes " of Wallace and Bruce 

 from Bloodhounds still live, and some of them at the present 

 moment come up fresh to our mind, although they have lain buried 

 for many years. An old MS., referring to King Edward I. pursuing 

 Robert Bruce, when as yet a claimant only to the Scottish crown, 

 says : 



The King Edward with horse and hound him sought 

 With men on foot, through marshes, moss, and mire ; 

 Through woods also, and mountains, where they fought. 



By the above-quoted instances we see that the use of the Blood- 

 hound as a tracker of fugitives was a common enough practice with 

 our ancestors. 



In the metrical legend of Owen Glendower these lines occur : 



For as the dogs pursue the silty doe, 



The Brach behind, the hounds on every side, 



So traced they me among the mountains wide. 



As the term " Brach " is so often met with in old sporting writers, 

 and as the above quotations show that it was certainly applied to 

 the Bloodhound, as well as to other varieties of hounds, it may be 

 as well to give the definitions of it. Brach seems to be a term of 

 general application to all hunting dogs. In old English and old 

 French it is spelt Brache, and in modern German Brack, and it is 

 applied to dogs that hunt by scent. Cotgrave says that the French 

 Braque is a kind of short-tailed dog, usually of a parti-colour; 

 Spanish Braco is flat-nosed, from the usually blunt, square nose 

 of dogs that hunt by scent. 



Jamieson, in his "Scottish Dictionary," defines "Brachell" as 



