FELL HOUNDS 



CHAPTER XV 



IT is a well known and incontrovertible fact, 

 that each variety of hunting country re- 

 quires its particular type of horse. The 

 same truth is therefore equally applicable to 

 hounds. For many generations it has been the 

 aim of leading hound breeders to produce the 

 perfect type, and the culmination of their efforts 

 is to-day represented by the stamp of hound 

 annually exhibited at Peterborough show. 

 Owing to the great importance placed upon the 

 shows, this type has come to be recognised as the 

 one and only standard, and the majority of 

 Masters do their best to attain to it. 



Granted then that this standard is admirably 

 suited to the country for which it was originally 

 intended, i.e., the Shires ; and keeping in mind 

 what we have said about the horse, is it not there- 

 fore reasonable to suppose that a deviation from 

 this type is essential in the case of hounds re- 

 quired to hunt in countries of a very different 

 nature ? Take for example the packs which 

 hunt the fells in the English Lake District. Their 

 country is the antithesis of Leicestershire, with 

 its flat and undulating grass-lands. Instead of 

 sound grass fields, hedges, and conveniently placed 

 coverts, we have a land which looks as if it had 

 been thrown up on end, and then adorned with 

 crags, scree-beds, and a heterogeneous collection 

 of rocks and stones. For generations the hounds 



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