EARL FITZHARDINGE'S 141 



were had recourse to during the first twenty years for 

 fresh blood, but since that time the Duke of Beaufort's 

 prevailed extensively, and subsequently the Duke of 

 Rutland's, the Earls Yarborough's, Fitzwilliam's, and 

 Ducie's, Lord H. Bentinck's, Sir Richard Button's, and 

 the Warwickshire; their Tarquin having found con- 

 siderable favour, also a clever hound named Villager, 

 from Sir Tatton Sykes. The bitches have been ex- 

 clusively bred in the Berkeley kennels for many years, 

 and the fresh blood has been obtained by the introduc- 

 tion of stud hounds. But with such a good sort in such 

 an extensive establishment, the necessity for resorting 

 to other kennels is not urgent. 



For a combination of all the perfections which are 

 capable of being united in one pack, Earl Fitzhlardinge's 

 cannot be excelled. Power, symmetry, constitution, 

 and sense, are qualities for which they are pre-eminent; 

 their hunting faculties cannot be surpassed for music 

 they have always been celebrated; whether picking a 

 cold scent over the plough, racing over the grass, or 

 working the intricate line of the wily animal through 

 gorse or woodland, they invariably speak to the scent. 

 The wonderful head they carry is another subject for 

 admiration. I could not fail on one occasion last season 

 observing the judicious system adopted to insure this 

 important property, which is universally practised with 

 them. The hounds had been running their fox some 

 little time in covert, when he broke over a large grass 

 field, and was viewed by one of the second horsemen, 

 who hallooed him, upon which two couples of hounds 

 got to the halloo in advance of the pack. Coming up 

 at the moment, and therefore enabled to see this, Ayris 

 stopped them from going on with the scent till the 

 body of the pack arrived >a plan which I am satisfied 

 is perfectly correct, although I have seen many hunts- 

 men of celebrity who would go on with one or two 

 couples of hounds, leaving the remainder to be brought 

 forward by the whipper-in. The motive for doing so is 

 that one or two couples of hounds being allowed to 



