THE AMERICAN FOXHOUND 11 



BREEDING, REARING AND TRAINING. 

 By O. L. Hennigan, Brick, Ala. 



Different hunters have different ideas about hunting and 

 hounds. Some prefer one style of hound and some another. I 

 make no pretensions of being a "know-all," yet, by my friends 

 and hunting companions, I am called a good hunter and a good 

 judge of a hound. From friends, this is very gratifying to me ; 

 for the opinions of other people I care notliing. I have had a 

 mania for hunting, and especially fox-hunting, all my life, and 

 have spent many a hard-earned dollar in pursuit of the sport. I 

 have hunted foxes in Alabama and Arkansas, in my native 

 mountains, and in the swamps of the Red River. I have ridden 

 to hounds after deer, and followed a bear pack in the cane- 

 brakes of the great Mississippi delta— that garden spot of the 

 earth. I have also run wolves, caught 'coons and 'possums, 

 hunted wild-cats, shot birds, and pitted game-cocks. In all of 

 these most "disreputable (?) pursuits" I have attained a reason- 

 able degree of proficiency. 



I shall endeavor to give the beginner the result of my experi- 

 ence in order that he may be saved some time, money, and 

 disappointments. To the man who has hunted, as I have, all 

 my life, I shall have nothing to say; he, as well as myself, are 

 wedded to our idols. 



There are lots of good hounds. Everybody has some good 

 ones. Through the columns of the sporting press we have often 

 seen very warm and oftentimes acrimonious discussions as to 

 the relative merits of different strains. It is not my intention to 

 enter into such controversy. Having owned and hunted with 

 many strains, I, of course, have my opinion as to which is not 

 the best, but which I like the best. 



Being of an inquiring and experimental turn of mind, and so 

 puffed up with egotism that I thought no one knew as much 

 about breeding as I did, I, with the help of some of my friends, 

 who, like myself, showed a lamentable lack of judgment, manu- 

 factured a private strain of our own. They were one -fourth 

 Walker, one-fourth English, one-fourth Virginia, and one- 

 fourth July blood. We know better now, for the hounds were a 

 great disappointment to us. In the first place, none of us had 

 money enough to buy horses fast enough to keep up with them ; 

 in the second place, they killed and ran out all the foxes in the 



