CHAPTER VII 

 FOXHOUNDS 



IT is a curious, but at the same time incontro- 

 vertible fact that the origin of the foxhound, 

 as he is known at the present day, has never 

 been thoroughly ascertained, but there is plenty of 

 evidence to show that hounds have been bred expressly 

 for hunting foxes for something like two hundred 

 years. And there is also some considerable amount 

 of indirect evidence which suggests that the old south- 

 ern hound, and the beagle — or northern beagle as he 

 was frequently called — were the two distinct varieties 

 of hounds from which the foxhound |Was evolved. 

 Unfortunately early writers on hunting" make little 

 or no mention of the origin of foxhounds, but in 

 a small volume of anonymous essays on hunting, 

 the following passage occurs : "The most satisfactory 

 reply to every hunter is that his own kind is best ; but 

 such as are setting up a new cry, I would advise to 

 begin to breed on the middle size dogs, betwixt the 

 Southern Hound and the Northern Beagle." This 

 volume, two copies of which I have seen, appears 

 to have been published by T. Baker at Southampton, 

 but no date is given. In the hunting volume of the 

 Badminton Library there is, however, a bibliography 

 of hunting, and the essays are referred to as having 

 been published in London in 1782. This makes the 

 book contemporary with Beckford, but I am inclined 



