144 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



off to the left, hunting in the most approved 

 fashion and at a good pace. The ground here 

 is all arable land ; but on reaching roots on 

 the crest of the hill, scent was better, and the 

 hound very quickly came into the open again, 

 but was at fault on a strip of plough. Not far 



MR. C. E. HOLFORD'S CH. REGENT, 

 SON OF COLONEL COWENS DRUID. 

 Reproduced from a Drawing on Wood by George Earl. 



away a group of villagers were watching the 

 sport, and close to the line a woman was stand- 

 ing ; but Rufus paid no heed to either, and 

 went on hunting every inch of the line until 

 reaching the outside boundary, clearly defined 

 by one of Gibbs' white flags. Here he came 

 to his first serious check, being out of view 

 for some minutes in a wood. On coming into 

 sight he ran heel for a distance ; but, en- 

 couraged by Collett, he at length regained the 

 line, and rattling down into the valley, where 

 scent was warmer than on the higher ground, 

 he ran into his quarry in exactly one hour 

 and ten minutes— really an excellent per- 

 formance. 



" On the second day scenting conditions 

 seemed perfect ; but, judging by the way 

 Blazer shaped on being unleashed, the ground 

 was holding scent no better than was the case 

 yesterday. Casting round in pretty style, he 

 was quickly on the line, and by slow hunting 

 he reached the point at which Rufus was first 

 at fault on the previous day in twenty minutes 

 — capital time, everything taken into con- 

 sideration. The light plough proved no ob- 

 stacle to Blazer, and, keeping up a nice pace. 



but hunting perfectly mute, he reached the 

 place where the Radnage villagers were as- 

 sembled. He passed these without the least 

 hesitancy, but met a much greater check in the 

 shape of a flock of sheep, which had fouled 

 the ground after the runner had passed. This 

 was awkward, and for 

 a time the obstacle 

 seemed a fatal one ; 

 but, allowed plenty of 

 liberty, Blazer took up 

 a line and carried it 

 to the end, making a 

 beautiful point by round- 

 ing a flag very closely, 

 and running down his 

 quarry in fifty minutes 

 — really a capital per- 

 formance. It was rather 

 curious, by the way, that, 

 like Rufus, who ran prac- 

 tically the same time on 

 the previous day, Blazer 

 went on a voyage of dis- 

 covery into the coppice 

 to the right of the turn- 

 ing flag. We would have 

 given a trifle to have had 

 time to make personal 

 investigations into that coppice. There was 

 apparently something attractive to the Blood- 

 hounds." 



Half a century ago the Bloodhound was 

 so little esteemed in this country that the 

 breed was confined to the kennels of a very 

 few owners ; but the institution of dog 

 shows induced these owners to bring their 

 hounds into public exhibition, when it 

 was seen that, like the Mastiff, the Blood- 

 hound claimed the advantage of having 

 many venerable ancestral trees to branch 

 from. At the first Birmingham show, in 

 i860, Lord Bagot brought out a team from 

 a strain which had been in his lordship's 

 family for two centuries, and at the same 

 exhibition there was entered probably one 

 of the best Bloodhounds ever seen, in Mr. 

 T. A. Jenning's Druid. Known now as 

 "Old" Druid, this dog was got by Lord 

 Faversham's Raglan out of Baron Roths- 

 child's historic bitch Fury, and his blood 

 goes down in collateral veins through Mr. 

 L. G. Morrel's Margrave, Prince Albert 



