2IO THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



the bitches so disfigured at breeding time, and, as a 

 matter of course, to use no sire which is not straight. 

 In a big kennel the hounds which are not straight 

 should be drafted before they are entered, but in a 

 small kennel it may not be convenient to get rid of an 

 otherwise good-looking hound for a fault which will not 

 affect his working powers, and in such a case the hound 

 which is not straight can certainly run with a pack. 



That hounds which are not straight are religiously 

 drafted in some kennels need hardly be stated, because 

 hound men know it to be a fact, and we can safely say 

 that we have been right through a kennel in which it 

 was impossible to discover a crooked-legged one. On 

 the other hand we have visited a kennel of some reputa- 

 tion, and failed to find a single straight hound in the 

 pack, and the huntsman — a new-comer — was bound to 

 admit it. '* There ain't half a dozen of 'em which are 

 biscuit straight," he lamented, and yet many of them 

 were otherwise good-looking, and they are supposed to 

 kill quite as many foxes as their neighbours. If, then, 

 Peterborough tends to cause an elimination of light 

 boned and crooked-legged hounds it must do good. 

 But it also sets the standard of that mysterious thing 

 called quality, which in a foxhound means make and 

 shape, elegance of outline, clean neck and shoulder, 

 gay carriage, and a general appearance of high-bred 

 activity. Quality is to be found in larger or smaller 

 quantities in all good-looking foxhounds, and it only 

 arrives in a kennel after the greatest care in breeding 

 has been- exercised for some years, and when hounds 

 with palpable faults have been religiously drafted, or 

 at all events not put to the stud. 



It has been said that there is in these days one type of 

 foxhound, but this is not exactly true in every sense of 



