HARRIERS AND BEAGLES 279 



quickly becoming a popular pastime, and also to 

 the fact that the meets were well known all over the 

 country at least a week before they took place. Mr. 

 Greenwell, on the other hand, only sent some half- 

 dozen cards of his fixtures to those whom he thought 

 likely to come, and in his time the country was full of 

 foxhunters who had the chance of as much hunting as 

 they could manage with foxhounds. 



Now it can safely be said that not one of the packs 

 we have mentioned, and which we hunted with con- 

 stantly during a period of over twenty years, were 

 really even, and what was most noticeable was not so 

 much the difference in height as the great variety of 

 type. In the Durham University pack, for example, 

 there were sixteen-inch hounds as lightly built as a 

 modern fox terrier, while others standing exactly the 

 same height were of double the weight, being heavily- 

 built, big-boned hounds, low for their size, and with a 

 massive throat, a big head, and a bass voice almost as 

 sonorous as that of a bloodhound. They were of all 

 colours, and certainly were well off for nose, but they 

 were slow and inclined to dwell on the line, and if the 

 hare they hunted was a strong one, they could only 

 wear her down by working up to where she had 

 squatted every now and then. This irregularity had 

 to a great extent disappeared when the Shotley Bridge 

 Beagles came on the scene, and Mr. Falconer suc- 

 ceeded in breeding a very pretty pack, which will be 

 found among the entries in the earliest volume of the 

 Stud Book, but even the beagles of the late eighties 

 would compare badly with what are now seen at Peter- 

 borough every year, and probably straightness is in a 

 marked degree quite a modern thing in beagles, and to 

 a great extent in harriers also. 



