CHAPTER III 



who's who in hound dogs 



American hunters are principally interested in 

 three big divisions of hounds — coonhounds, fox- 

 hounds and beagles. They constitute three-quar- 

 ters of all the hunting dogs used in the United 

 States. Of the three kinds, the coonhound is dis- 

 tinctively American, the foxhound Americanised, 

 and the beagle almost unchanged from the fixed 

 English type. The coonhound is distinctly our 

 dog. Used for deer, coons, bear, wild cat and all 

 kinds of treeing '* varmints," he has had as much 

 to do with the development of our country as the 

 pioneer himself. He was the pioneer's dog in 

 fact, and for the last three centuries has been the 

 hunter's dog all over the backwoods. In the old 

 days we had to take our meat as we found it, run- 

 ning wild in the forests, for butchers and beeves 

 were not and the English grenadiers that we used 

 to kill for winter meat got scarce after '76, The 

 coonhound started with innumerable hounds 

 brought over by the settlers — French, English and 



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