About Scent — no Rule. 463 



to force the foxes into Essex. The Puckeridge was the pack John Leech frequented, and 

 from which he took most of his comical sketches. 



"In the High Wold, Brocklesby country (a country of corn, root, and sheep farms, and a 

 light soil, originally reclaimed from heath and rabbit-warrens), when the country is dry the 

 scent fails. The more rain the better we go ; best up to our knees and hocks in mud. In the 

 Berkeley county (grass dairy farms) dry weather is most favourable to sport. The Cotswold 

 Hills hold a better scent than the vale. The Beaufurt county is richer land than Heythrop 

 (Oxfordshire), has more grass, and it holds a better scent. The Duke of Grafton's county 

 (Northamptonshire) has much grass land, and is first-rate, and so is the Pytchley, except the 

 northern part adjoining Bedfordshire, which is notoriously the worst scenting county in the 

 hunt." 



" In Shropshire, whenever there is scent on the Haughmond Hill there is none in the 

 valley, and the reverse holds good. The Old Berkshire shows most sport in a dry season. 

 When scent had been bad on an October day the fog rose, and the hounds killed their fox 

 in twenty minutes." 



THE FOX-HOUND. 



In no branch of breeding has the art been carried to such perfection as in the fox-hound. 

 With definite objects, successive generations of huntsmen have selected and bred without any 

 regard to cost, and with all the advantages of recorded pedigree which are enjoyed by the 

 breeders of thoroughbred horses. But the breeders of racehorses constantly breed without 

 regard to form, to soundness, or to constitution, if the blood of sire or dam promise speed. 

 No matter what the defects of a sire that has won great races, his services will be in great 

 demand. Not so with the fox-hound ; as he is simply an instrument of pleasure, as his qualities 

 do not win money, the breeder of the most obscure as well as of the most fashionable pack 

 aims at the same perfections. The fox-hound must have the symmetry which insures speed 

 nnd endurance, a vigorous body and limbs, with no superfluous flesh, and a full development 

 of the chest and breathing powers. He must be kcen-sccntcd, and musical in the degree 

 equired in the country he hunts. 



To all these, and other points too numerous to mention, the Masters of hounds and 

 huiitsmen of England, in continual communication with each other, have devoted their attention 

 for more than a century, and have in that time got rid of the "crooked legs," the "dewlaps" 

 of "Id English and Continental hounds, in some instances sacrificing scent and hunting qualities 

 to speed, but always combining in a high degree hunting and racing qualities. 



It is in the success with which a huntsman unites the best qualities of a hound, corrects 

 the faults of a good bitch by putting to a stallion excellent in the qualities where she is deficient, 

 or vice versd, that the kennel excellence of a huntsman is shown. 



In a pack of reputation it is important that all the dogs and bitches should be as nearly 

 of a size as possible, whatever be the standard of the pack; dogs at the present day ranging 

 from twenty-two inches to twenty-Jive inches, bitches from twenty-one to twenty-three inches. 

 In some countries the dogs and bitches are hunted in separate packs, " ladies" being considered 

 the fastest ; in other countries, equally famous for sport, they are mixed, and then twenty-three 

 inches is the more popular size. 



Some Masters of hounds are as particular about colour as about size ; others are satisfied 

 if the pack will only hunt and race. 



As to size, in the present civilised state of English agriculture the size of a fox-hound 



