THE BLOODHOUND 77 



and to make a good finish, and leave off before the hound becomes 

 tired. When he has done particularly well, there is a great tempta- 

 tion to make the next run much more difficult, and if the runner 

 has not been cautioned to obey orders exactly, he may think it 

 clever (if he can see the hound working well) to make the finish 

 more difficult, thereby probably turning what would have been a 

 very good lesson into a very bad one. When the pups are old 

 enough they should be taught to jump boldly and to swim brooks 

 when necessary. 



Hounds soon learn to try back when they have overrun the 

 line and to cast themselves, and should never be interfered with 

 as long as they are working on their own account. There is no 

 more heartbreaking sensation than to find that you have lifted a 

 hound wrongly when he was working out the right line for himself. 



The Bloodhound can not only puzzle out a colder line than any 

 other hound, but he has the great characteristic that he is "free 

 from change," as the French say, and after he has had a small 

 amount of training he should be quite reliable to stick to the line 

 of the hunted man, although it has been crossed by many others. 



It is best to train hounds singly at first, and to be very careful 

 when hunting hounds in a pack that they shall be well matched, 

 or there is a danger of the slower hounds running to the leading 

 ones, instead of working out the line for themselves. Any one who 

 is fond of seeing hounds work, but who has only a limited amount 

 of country to hunt over, will derive an immense amount of pleasure 

 in hunting man with one or two couples of Bloodhounds. In such 

 circumstances it is a great convenience to be able to select the 

 exact course, which could not be done if hunting some animal, 

 and a great variety of different runs may be planned over com- 

 paratively limited ground. 



There is nothing more delightful than to see Bloodhounds 

 working out a line carefully under varying conditions, and, after a 

 check and the line has been hit off again, to hear their sonorous, 

 deep, bell-like note. There is not, of course, the slightest danger 

 to the runner, even if the hounds have never seen him before. 

 When they have come up and sniffed him over, they take no further 

 interest in him. There is plenty of scope for enterprise in this 

 direction, and no reason why the Bloodhound should not be restored 

 to the old pitch of excellence, when he could be relied upon to run 

 his man down on a scent twelve to twenty-four hours old. 



Fortunately for the Bloodhound, it has been impossible to make 

 him a more picturesque animal in any other way than by accentuating 

 the special features for which he is remarkable, and he has therefore 

 escaped the ruin which has been wrought on some breeds by the 

 development of fancy points that are quite foreign to them. 

 Consequently we have the special properties indicative of great 



