THE FOXHOUND 177 



and unhappy attempts to be a mild and distant copy of those 

 fashionable packs having as much money at their backs as they 

 desire to spend. How much less their difficulties and happier 

 their lot if they could be content with being "unfashionable," and 

 aimed only at being " sporting " a virtue which money cannot buy. 

 " Stonehenge " writes : " I have seen a pack costing little more than 

 ^700 a year show more sport in the same country than another 

 subsequently established costing ^1,400 per annum. 



When " money " fails to provide " sport," keepers are blamed, 

 fanners are blamed, shooting tenants, wire fences anything, every- 

 thing, except what is often the real reason, the absence of the 

 sporting spirit and a knowledge of the huntsman's craft. Give us 

 " more money," is the cry ; and how very often they get the money 

 but no increase of sport ! Give us men with the sportsman's 

 knowledge, zeal, and devotion would be a more useful prayer 

 in many a Hunt. Not that present-day difficulties should be 

 under-estimated, for they are very great, and increasing every season, 

 many of them being quite unknown to our ancestors. 



The Foxhound has been bred with undoubted purity for very 

 many years, and his pedigree recorded from generation to genera- 

 tion with the utmost care ; but how he was originally obtained 

 is an open question. Richardson, who made a careful study of 

 hound breeding and who wrote in 1840, was decidedly of opinion 

 that the modern Foxhound is the result of a fortunate blend 

 between the blood of the Talbot, Greyhound, and English Terrier ; 

 other writers substitute Bulldog for English Terrier. All consider 

 the Talbot to be the foundation stock and apparently believe 

 in a Greyhound cross. It is, of course, quite probable that 

 the Foxhound may have been " made " by some such method. 

 As the country became clearer and speed more to be desired 

 or even essential, the Greyhound would naturally have been 

 regarded as the proper corrective for the slow, painstaking Talbot, 

 and the high courage of the Bulldog would also have been considered 

 a desirable commodity to introduce. It seems to be allowed that 

 at one time some Greyhounds had Bulldog blood in their veins, 

 and it may well be that these were found to provide what was 

 wanting in the old Talbot. There is, however, no necessity to 

 presume any direct cross in bringing the Foxhound to his present 

 pitch of perfection ; skilled breeders, given time and a wide choice, 

 would in a course of years, by a process of careful selection, produce 

 a race far lighter, quicker, and more dashing than the parent stock. 



How type, size, character, and constitution can all be altered 

 in the course of a few years by breeders with an object in view 

 is well known to most of us, even middle-aged men being often 

 astounded by alterations made in a breed which was perhaps the 

 favourite of their boyhood, and then lost sight of for a time. 



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