128 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



now scarcely numerous enough to allow of the picnics a Ice 

 chasse so popular here : but the jackal remains in wondrous 

 stoutness and abundance, and merrily and happily do the hill- 

 sides ring in his honour. There is no fairer turf on any of the 

 clowns of the old country. Tilton or Burrough (believe me, my 

 well-loved friends of High Leicestershire) carry no such con- 

 sistent blaze of scent ; and Owston Wood never bred a stouter 

 varmint than we have on the Neilgherries. Yes, and we have 

 a decent pack of hounds besides — more than decent for India — 

 thirty-two couple, well bred, and in working order, beautifully 

 various as to size and shape, and representing almost eveiy 

 kennel in the United Kingdom. Yet among them we can pick 

 out some sixteen couple that might be trotted to covert any- 

 where, or with whom we might even offer a provincial M.F.H. 

 the questionable luxury of " a day on the flags " (provided 

 always he arrived in time to lunch and brown sherry with us- 

 first). We should first draw for him our five couple from the 

 Quorn, and show him, with no little pride, how nobly Mr. 

 Coupland could treat his friends at a distance. We should bore 

 him with a yarn of little point of how we had seen that badger- 

 pied bitch lead the Meltonians slowly on, on into the ploughs of 

 Nottinghamshire, when but for her nose they would have been 

 on their way to try for a second fox on the grass ; and we would 

 assure him how nothing but her colour had exiled her from 

 Quorndon. We should dilate on the symmetry of these Mid- 

 land ladies as they coquet to his greeting ; while with folded 

 arms we should leave to his common sense the expression of 

 praise on these grand dogs, in each wistful eye of whom is 

 written as plain as words, " Oh, why was I sent to Asia — / who 

 was walked at Barkby, and first tasted fox from the Coplow ? " 

 We should then show him the ten couple selected from the 

 late Madras pack, refer all his questions on their merits to 

 Veerasawmy, our black kennel huntsman, who is ready, as 

 opportunity offers, to declare the wildest or mutest of them 

 all " that best hound ever come Madras side, sare." Next we 

 should produce the three couple of home-bred ones, and tell 



