The Vine Hunt y from 1824 /^ 1834. 85 



rejected as being under the mark. It must also be 

 admitted that Mr. Chute had for some years been 

 breeding too exclusively from his own dogs, without 

 infusing that fresh blood which is continually required; 

 not to change the sort, but to keep it up to its proper 

 standard, and to prevent the degeneracy which is 

 the sure consequence of breeding ' in and in' Thus 

 not only the size and beauty of the pack, but also 

 their quality, had suffered. The faults inherent in 

 the breed had come out more strongly. When 

 Adamson took the pack in hand, they were inferior 

 to what they had been five years before, and be- 

 came five years later. There were three high-flying 

 bitches, of whom he did not like to take out any two 

 together; because, when they began to race jealously 

 against each other, they cared little how far they left 

 the scent behind them. But the slow process of im- 

 provement was already begun. In the last year of Mr. 

 Chute's life I had persuaded him, chiefly through the 

 influence of his brother, to try a cross from the cele- 

 brated John Warde, at the Craven kennel, which was 

 certainly going at once to the fountain-head, both for 

 power and for steadiness. Mr. T. Chute went to Mr. 

 Warde's kennel, and selected two dogs. Voucher and 

 Dragon, and the produce of each was a litter of 

 excellent hounds, who were afterwards bred from.* 



* One of these hounds, called Villager, became celebrated for 

 his beauty and goodness, and was much bred from in his own 

 and in other kennels. My old friend, William Windham of 

 Dinton, an excellent judge, but whose prepossessions were all in 

 favour of a larger style of hound, pronounced the Vine Villager 

 to be the handsomest foxhound he had ever seen. This hound 

 never would enter to a scent till late in his first season. 



