i 7 8 BRITISH DOGS 



The Foxhound has always enjoyed enthusiastic, skilled, and wealthy 

 owners ; he has not been dependent upon the whims of ladies 

 and gentlemen taking him up for a hobby, proud and delighted 

 with the new toy so long as they can win prizes at shows, cast 

 away and ignored when the owner no longer shines through his 

 dog. On the contrary, Foxhound stud books have been carefully 

 preserved for generations. The history of every important strain is 

 known for many a year, fresh blood and the right stuff can always be 

 obtained, and Masters of experience, desirous neither of making 

 money nor of winning prizes, have, as a rule, given every facility 

 to less favoured packs to improve their hounds and get or breed 

 the really high-class specimens now often to be seen in very 

 " local " Hunts. Foxhound breeders have thus for many years 

 had an ideal opportunity, and have taken full advantage of it. 



Although speed and endurance may be considered the chief 

 characteristics of the modern Foxhound, and to have elbowed 

 out nose from first or even second place, it must not be supposed 

 that every strain is bred on the same lines or with the same object. 

 In the great hunting counties of the Midlands a pack is required 

 of beautiful clean thoroughbreds, full of hard muscle, fit and ready 

 to "run for their lives." They skim like a flying cloud before the 

 wind over the wide, scent-holding pasture-lands only a few minutes 

 behind a perfect Greyhound of a fox racing in a direct line for the 

 covert of which he knows a few miles distant. Usually there is no 

 time for music, no time for feints and dodges, no necessity for 

 puzzling out a line ; on on without a pause, at a pace which one 

 writer describes as " the envy of every second-class Greyhound." 

 Men press down their hats and gallop for their lives in order 

 to keep even within sight of the race. But what would be the 

 good of all this in a country mostly composed of sticky plough, 

 small holdings, or steep hills ? In such the Master requires careful, 

 painstaking hounds able to carry on a stale line over a cold plough 

 or along a high road, or, as in parts of North Hampshire, over 

 fields seemingly little else than a bed of flints. Then, in a big 

 woodland country a pack with great push and plenty of music 

 is of immense importance if foxes are to be forced into the open 

 and the field to be kept informed of where hounds are. For 

 these reasons Foxhounds which are a complete failure in some 

 packs often, when drafted, perform most useful service and are 

 highly valued by the huntsmen. 



Still, allowing to the fullest extent for the different sort of hound 

 required to meet the needs of a different sort of country, the English 

 Foxhound should in make and shape follow closely certain well-de- 

 fined lines. Thus, the head should be of fair size and well balanced ; 

 good length of skull and muzzle, which should be broad with wide 

 nostrils ; the eye should have a bold, keen, determined look, and the 



