THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 25 



half so well worth reading, or manifesting a similar 

 knowledge of the subject. 



During the three years in which I was occupied in 

 getting together twenty couples of dwarf foxhound 

 harriers, with which I hunted hare in my own neigh- 

 bourhood, — in the course of which I obtained drafts not 

 only from every pack which might be said to be within 

 reach, but also from Wilts, Dorset, Devon, Hampshire, 

 &c., I found none which could, in the aggregate, at all 

 compare with those which I got from the kennel of Mr. 

 Berkeley, then at Harold, in Bedfordshire.. 



It would be out of place, here, to state my reasons 

 for hunting hare with the kind of hound by which she 

 is generally supposed to be more than over-matched, 

 further than that they were founded upon my own pre- 

 ference for that, over every other dog in the creation, 

 and that I was supported by no less an authority than 

 Lord Tavistock (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 imme- 

 diately exhibit ample promise of a future excellence in 



