70 THE HARRIER 



Harriers, tall white hounds with lemon splashes, bear 

 a singular resemblance to the hounds of Vendee, 

 What is more to the point, they have great fine- 

 ness of nose and beautiful music, and they are com- 

 mendably free from change. Mr. H. A. Bryden 

 subsequently wrote to Country Life dissenting from 

 some of these conclusions, thinking " that the colour 

 of this unique and most interesting type of hound 

 has been evolved from the nature of the surroundings 

 amid which the ancestors of these hounds had to do 

 their work. The old Devon and Somerset Stag- 

 hounds, to which it is admitted that the various 

 light-coloured packs still hunting in Devon and 

 Somerset claim kindred, did much of their hunting 

 amid dark heather ; and it was natural, therefore, 

 that the men who hunted with them should wish to 

 breed a hound of light colour which could be more 

 easily distinguished in the long chases over the wild, 

 heathy country of which Exmoor largely consists." 

 Sir John Heathcoat-Amory has a pack of these light - 

 coloured Harriers, and the same markings are afeo 

 remarked in the Quarme and several other West 

 Country packs. It is further interesting to know 

 that the Cotley chiefly hunt the fox after Christmas, 

 and in the season of 1908-9 they killed 108 hares 

 and twelve brace of foxes, earthing as many more. 

 At Bexhill there is a pack of black -and-tan Har- 

 riers, also of ancient lineage. Several North Country 

 packs still keep up the old blood, the Penistone being 

 said to be old Southern hounds. I was fortunate 

 enough recently to come across the Badlesmere pack, 

 which is hunted by the Rev. Courtenay Morgan - 

 Kirby, near Faversham, in Kent. The Master says : 

 "My hounds are absolutely pure old Southerns. 



