HOUNDS OF OUR ANCESTORS 4a 



Langley,* clearly show that hunting was performed with 

 hounds whose individual properties enabled them to 

 himt by scent and by view. Thus, those which ran by 

 scent were used in the coverts, and those which ran by 

 view, in the open. The horn was also used indiscrimin- 

 ately to call them together. 



However the variety may have been produced, the 

 English fox-hound stands unrivalled for all purposes of 

 hunting, and it is unanimously admitted that he soon 

 degenerates in any other country ; which is proof in- 

 contestable of the effects of treatment and of climate. 

 By continuing to breed from animals endowed with 

 certain predominant faculties, and gifted with par- 

 ticular characteristics of shape and make, the degree of 

 perfection to which they have arrived has undoubtedly 

 been accomplished. The blood-hound, or sleuth-hound, 

 is most probably the line from which our fox-hounds 

 are descended ; for as it appears that hounds were not 

 kept exclusively for the chase of the fox much more 

 than two centuries back, we cannot come to the con- 

 clusion that the peculiar description of hound was 

 attempted to be bred until his services were required. 

 The hounds we read of some four or five hundred years 

 ago are described as black and tan, to which the 

 blood-hound of the present day bears an identical 

 resemblance. How that variety was produced it is 

 impossible to say. From time to time, by crossing, and 

 perhaps the effect of climate, other colours have come 

 forth ; and from them there is good reason for asserting 

 that the present race of fox-hounds is derived. 



There also appears, on the authority of old writers on 

 hunting subjects, a distinction between the hounds in 

 the north and south of England. They are described as 

 the northern and southern hounds. The former, having 

 been bred principally in Yorkshire, were characterised 

 with smaller heads and lighter in their make ; more 

 speedy and active than the southern variety, but not 



* See footnote on page 4. 



