FOXES FOXHOUNDS & FOX-HUNTING 



of the dogs found their way to land, and from 

 them in a direct line have descended the Kerry- 

 Beagles of the present day. 



In 1906, Lord Ribblesdale and Mr. Peter 

 Ormrod founded the Ribblesdale Buck-hounds, 

 to hunt wild fallow and sika deer in the Ribble 

 valley and moorland country adjoining. Mr. 

 Ormrod was a great believer in the Kerry beagle, 

 so he set about forming a pack of hounds of that 

 breed. 



At that time there were two packs of Kerries 

 in existence, one of which belonged to Mr. Ryan, 

 of Scarteen, county Limerick, the other being the 

 property of Mr. A. Wallis, of Drishane Castle, 

 Millstreet. The latter pack had been bred 

 entirely from Scarteen hounds, which had been 

 in the Ryan family since 1735. Mr. Ormrod 

 purchased the pack from Mr. Wallis, and by de- 

 grees augmented it. These hounds showed 

 wonderful sport in the Ribblesdale country, and 

 in memory we can still hear their glorious cry 

 as they raced over the fields in pursuit of their 

 deer. Later, Mr. Ormrod introduced Belvoir 

 blood, in order to increase bone, his method of 

 mating being to put a Kerry bitch to a fox-hound 

 stallion, and from the litter a bitch was mated 

 with a stallion out of a litter by a fox-hound 

 dam and a Kerry sire. 



Kerry Beagles were used in Ireland for hunting 

 fox, hare, and deer, and in England the Ribbles- 

 dale Buck-hounds showed what the Kerries could 

 do with fallow and sika buck. The Ribblesdale 

 are now disbanded, but there are still a number 

 of wild deer in the country. In 1913, Mr. A. 

 Wallis took his pack of Kerry Beagles from the 

 Four Burrow country to the Woodland Pytchley, 

 where he showed capital sport for several seasons. 



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