FOXHOUNDS 209 



the best workers, but it can indicate year by year the 

 type which breeders should aim at, and this is what it 

 faithfully does. Some critics there are who affirm that 

 too much attention is paid to bone and straightness, 

 but bone means strength and constitution, and these 

 are absolutely necessary if a hound has to go through a 

 long day, and travel home at night with his stern up. 

 Moreover, there is no evidence to the effect that excess 

 of bone in any way depreciates speed, for on certain days 

 in every season, when scent is of the sort which is aptly 

 termed breast-high, hounds will beat horses altogether, 

 even if the ground is in first-rate galloping order, and 

 there is nothing formidable to hinder the progress of 

 the field. There are those who urge that the lighter- 

 built Welsh hounds can travel faster on a hot scent 

 than the foxhound which is used in other parts of the 

 kingdom, but this has yet to be proved, and meanwhile 

 it may be confidently stated that the modern foxhound 

 goes quite fast enough. Indeed, some will have it that 

 nose has been sacrificed to speed, but an apparent 

 delicacy of nose is very often due to over-riding, and 

 the otter hunters prefer a foxhound to an otter-hound 

 for the purposes of marking an otter in his holt. 



Then as to straightness ; it may easily be that a 

 hound which is not quite straight can go as fast and as 

 far as his brother or sister which is really straight, but 

 a shapely limb is better than a malformed one, and lack 

 of straightness is to some small extent a malformation. 

 In these days of plenty of money, and a high standard 

 as regards hounds, a hound which is not perfectly 

 straight should never be bred from, for physical defects 

 of sire or dam are very often reproduced in the 

 progeny, and so on ad infinitum. The only way to 

 get rid of legs which are ever so crooked is to ignore 

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