THE PACK. 267 



had the advantage of a few couple of entered hounds 

 from the Royal pack. With infinite skill and labour 

 he collected a pack whose work in the field was all 

 that could be desired, and whose looks on the flags 

 would have been a credit to any pack in the country. 

 Suddenly twenty years of labour was brought to 

 nought, for rabies appeared among them, and after 

 fruitless efforts to stamp out the disease by means of 

 segregating all those hounds which were supposed 

 to have been exposed to contagion, a work of no 

 small risk to those carrying it out, the determination 

 was reluctantly arrived at that the pack must be 

 destroyed. This was carried out to the great grief 

 of all concerned, the only survivor being a young 

 hound, Wellington, who had been away at 

 Bagborough in consequence of an accident. 



The courage and perseverance which had enabled 

 Mr. Bisset to overcome the obstacles which had 

 seemed well-nigh insuperable when he took the 

 hounds originally, enabled him to get together in an 

 extraordinary short time a new pack with which he 

 hunted in 1878. There were, it is true, troubles 

 arising from riot, and particularly from sheep, but 

 Arthur Heal, at that time in his prime, was very 

 capable of dealing with trouble of this kind, for he 

 was by nature one of those men whom hounds instinc- 

 tively obey, and he had a marvellous knack of always 

 being at the exact spot where his active intervention 

 was required. The pack which Mr. Bisset handed 

 over to the committee, after twenty-six years of 



