THE PACK. 247 



Folx's MS. cannot be said with certainty, but 

 probably they were Normandy hounds, a subdivision 

 of the St. Huberts. 



We may dismiss the chiens fauves de Bretagne 

 and the chiens de St. Louis, as we know both to have 

 been rough-coated Hke a Welsh hound — the former 

 a dark tan, and the latter wolf-grey. The chiens gris 

 are described as having been fast, but to have had 

 bad noses and to have been liable to change. This is 

 practically the character given by the Comte le 

 Couteulx de Canteleu to the modern English fox- 

 hound. The fallow hounds must, on the contrary, 

 have had good noses, been very staunch, and 

 possessed of immense hardness and staying powers 

 if the wonderful performances with which they are 

 credited really took place — namely, that they ran a 

 stag from the forest of Ponthievre (250 miles) to 

 Paris in four days. When one reads of these 

 marvellous doings one cannot help wondering what 

 their feeding arrangements were. 



The "grands chiens blancs du roi " did not exist 

 at the time Gaston de Foix wrote, so we are driven 

 to the conclusion that the hounds he writes of are 

 white St. Huberts crossed with some other breed. 

 The black St. Hubert is unquestionably the ancestor 

 of the modern bloodhound, while the white variety is 

 said to have been the source of the English Talbot 

 hound, long since extinct. 



The origin of the " grands chiens blancs du 

 roi," or " greffiers " as they were commonly called, 



