HISTOEY OF THE LINLITHGOW 



assuming the control, took over the hounds as 

 county property, and without purchasing them, as 

 has been suggested.^ 



In his short reign Mr Hay improved the pack in 

 a wonderful manner ; ^ and although there are no 

 hound lists forthcoming to show it, he seems to 

 have introduced a strain of blood which he had 

 brought down from Warwickshire and had obtained 

 from the old Pytchley.^ The one and a half couples 

 of hounds represented in the picture containing 

 his portrait, painted in 1830,^ if forming part of 

 the Linlithgow and Stirlingshire pack, indicate a 

 distinct improvement both in shape and in sub- 

 stance, and since the figures in this work are by 

 Sir Francis Grant, it may be assumed that the 

 drawing is good. 



The large picture ^ painted for Mr W. R. Ramsay 

 by H. B. Chalon in 1835, shows some fourteen and 

 a half couples of hounds which, although perhaps 

 rather wanting in bone, have at least the appear- 

 ance of foxhounds, and will be compared favour- 

 ably with those portrayed by Nasmyth and Douglas. 

 During Mr Ramsay's mastership the pack, notwith- 

 standing the fact that it was strengthened by drafts 

 from Lord Kintore's, the Duke of Cleveland's, the 

 Badsworth and other kennels, was generally of 

 Beaufort and Lonsdale blood, ^ and possibly Mr 



^ Vide Appendix IV. ^ ' Sporting Magazine,' April 1831. 



3 Ibid., August 1839. * Vide illustration, p. 96. 



^ Vide illustration, p. 134. 



6 ' Field and Fern ' (South), by The Druid, 1865, p. 54. 



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