THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 31 



in the muscle of both which enables them to fly their 

 fences. I fancy, also, that arched loins are better adapted 

 to hills, and are most in harmony with the symmetrical 

 outline requisite for speed and bottom. 



The sketch at the head of this Chapter, however 

 imperfect, may convey, better than any power of descrip- 

 tion which I possess, my notion of a well- shaped hound. 

 It might seem absurd to record my conviction of the 

 necessity that your hounds should be not only well- 

 shaped but well-bred, having already stated that nothing 

 canine will hunt like a high-bred foxhound ; and surely 

 none will contend that any thing else can run with 

 them ; but it is too fresh in my memory, that, in these 

 days of innovation, attempts have been not only sug- 

 gested, but made, to reform, and thereby, of course, 

 improve, the blood of this old English foxhound. This 

 circumstance is of too recent date to admit of being 

 left to the silence of oblivion. 



About two years before Mr. Sebright retired from 

 Hertfordshire, I was surprised by the appearance, amidst 

 the entry for that season, of a large, leggy, black-and- 

 tanned bitch, called (perhaps in compHment to her pedi- 

 gree) Wisdom. Without any particular faultiness in 

 shape, she was, in my eyes, and in those of others seeing 

 objects in a similar hght, exactly the animal, of all others, 

 to destroy the appearance of a whole pack. Frequently 

 have I heard it inquired, by strangers, whence the creature 



