THE EIGHTH DUKE OF BEAUFORT 



a fox occasionally when they could find one. But 

 already foxes were scarce. Fox-hunting indeed 

 only became popular in time to save the fox from 

 extinction. The stag was the commoner animal of 

 the two on estates of great nobles like the Dukes of 

 Rutland or Beaufort. But the love of fox-hunting 

 was then in the air. The fame of Mr. Meynell was 

 beginning to spread, and the Belvoir hounds were 

 already hunting foxes regularly. Two of the Duke's 

 sisters were married into hunting families, and in my 

 History of the Belvoir Hunt I have shown how this 

 Duke and his son evidently influenced the rise of 

 the Midland packs. 



In 1 80 1 Belvoir borrowed a hound from Badmin- 

 ton named Topper. This hound is one of the roots 

 of the family of which Rallywood, Weathergage, 

 Gambler, Dexter and Dasher are famous represen- 

 tatives. Now Topper probably goes back to the 

 old Badminton staghound blood, for the name 

 occurs again and again in the kennel. This fact, 

 coupled with the careful in-breeding shown by the 

 kennel books of Badminton, leads us to believe 

 that here we have the link between the old Northern 

 and Southern hounds and the modern foxhound. 



Nor are we left only to conjecture. The descrip- 

 tions of the Badminton hounds in their early days 

 left to us by contemporaries show plainly their 

 descent from the older races. Of course we have 

 always known that there was such a connection. 

 The history of the Badminton hounds enables us 



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