FOX AND HOUND 



As I write comes one having pretty talent for 

 conundrums, to ask when the practice of rounding 

 the ears of hounds came into use. The question 

 is difficult to answer. The few hound pictures of 

 Francis Barlow (b. 1626, dec. 1702) show no 

 rounded ears : the many pictures of John Wootton 

 (b. circa 1685, dec. 1765) show ears rounded, but 

 in less degree than at a later date, but also ears 

 in the natural state. In his * Death of the Fox* 

 some of the hounds are rounded and some are 

 not: in his * Portraits of Hounds' three are rounded 

 and one is not. Unfortunately none of these works 

 are dated. Stephen Elmer's portrait of Mr. Corbet's 

 Trojan^ entered 1780, shows ears closely rounded. 

 In the engravings from Wootton's works some 

 hounds' ears seem to be cut to a point; * peaked* 

 would describe the shape ; but I have never seen 

 any reference in early hunting books to this or 

 any other method of cutting the ears. Peaking 

 would answer much the same purpose as rounding, 

 an operation now not universally practised. 



Is there anything in the literature of the chase 

 more delightful than this from Charles Kingsley's 

 *My Winter Garden' P^ 



' . . . Stay. There was a sound at last ; a 

 light footfall. A hare races towards us, through 

 the ferns, her great bright eyes full of terror, 

 her ears aloft to catch some sound behind. She 



* Fraser's Magazine, April 1858. 



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