THE BASSET-HOUND 209 



where they are. Some men make their Bassets retrieve, even 

 from water ; and most Bassets will go to ground readily to fox 

 or badger. 



Finally, some peasants use their extraordinary powers of scent 

 to find truffles. Their training for that sort of business is wonder- 

 fully simple. The hound, when young, is kept a day without 

 food, and a truffle being shown to him, the peasant throws it into 

 some small covert, or hides it in stones, or buries it lightly in 

 the ground, and makes the dog find it ; when he has done so, he 

 gives him a piece of bread this sort of thing being repeated until 

 the Basset looks readily for the truffle. He is then taken to those 

 places in the neighbourhood of which truffles are known or sus- 

 pected to be, and the peasant, pretending to throw away the usual 

 truffle, tells the dog, ' Cherchez / cherchez ! ' (' Seek ! seek !'), 

 whereupon the little hound, diligently ferreting about the ground, 

 soon comes upon a truffle scent, and begins digging for the tuber. 

 At the first sign of that process the peasant relieves him, and digs 

 out the precious fungus ; and so on. There are some other 

 species of dogs also used for that sort of work; but the Basset, 

 owing to his acute power of scent, is mostly preferred by the pro- 

 fessional chercheurs de truffes. Some of these men, however, use 

 pigs for the purpose. 



Concerning those French Bassets which have from time to 

 time been exhibited at our shows, some of them have shown fair 

 points, but none of them have had the very long ears which one 

 will notice with the Bassets in the foresters' kennels on the Con- 

 tinent. Moreover, in the classes set aside for Bassets, I do not 

 remember having seen a good Basset a jambes torses, though there 

 were one or two fair specimens of half-crooked and straight- 

 legged Bassets. If my memory serves me right, the Earl of 

 Onslow's were straight-legged, half rough-coated Bassets, with 

 remarkably short ears. Mr. Millais' Model was a black, white, 

 and tan, smooth-coated Basset, with very fair properties the best 

 I had seen in England so far and a Vendean Basset was a 

 regular Griffon. I forget now the state of his legs, but his coat 

 was just the sort of jacket for the rough woods of Brittany and 

 Vendee. 



On the other hand, in the classes for Dachshunds I have 

 seen some first-rate black-and-tan and also red Bassets a jambes 

 torses, all smooth-coated. No doubt, eventually, classes will be 

 set apart for each individual breed, and in such a case there is 

 a very fine field yet open for an enterprising exhibitor wishing to 

 produce Bassets in open court." 



Since the foregoing was written the Basset-hound has, by im- 

 portation and breeding, greatly increased in this country ; and 



14 



