26 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



and that I was supported by no less an authority than 

 Lord Ta\istock (once himself a master of harriers) in my 

 opinion, that nothing existing in canine shape will hunt 

 a lower scent than a high-bred foxhound. I will, in my 

 appendix, add an extract from a letter of an old sports- 

 man, in reference to this branch of the science, and pro- 

 ceed now to say, that having had, as a matter of course, 

 infinite trouble with the entry of young hounds limited 

 to twenty inches in height, I found that, whilst, in the 

 generality of the drafts, one worth putting forward was an 

 exception to the lot, in those obtained from Harold, it was 

 rarely that any were found which did not immediately ex- 

 hibit ample promise of a future excellence in which I was 

 seldom disappointed. How far I succeeded in establishing 

 this pack of harriers, it does not become me to say ; I leave 

 it to the decision of those judges who may have seen 

 them upon their transmission into Norfolk, having, upon 

 taking the foxhounds, sold them to Sir James Flower, 

 whose energy and zeal are sufficient warrant for the per- 

 petuity of their character ; * for my present purpose, it is 

 enough to say, that I at once decided upon a reliance on 

 Lord Segrave's blood for hunting the fox in Hertfordshire, 

 and this is the blood to which, after due trial, I am most 

 anxious to adhere. In the coldest and most adverse 



* The merits of this crack establishment have been already so well and 

 justly described, in prose and verse, in the pages of the New Sporting Magazine, 

 that any eulogy from my pen would be more than superfluous. 



