HUNTING ABROAD 147 



equal prominence as sportsmen and huntsmen, are 

 ranged on both sides of the question. Mr. Thomas 

 Hitchcock and Mr. Harry Smith, for example, main- 

 tain that the nose of the English hound is not keen 

 enough for our dry climate, or for picking up a cold 

 trail in this country, where " earths" are not stopped 

 as they are in England, and consequently the fox can 

 go to ground when hard pressed. Moreover, the 

 English hound has been trained to work in a pack, 

 rather than as an individual like the American fox- 

 hound, who is therefore better adapted to cope with 

 our larger, wilder, and rougher woodlands, where at 

 times he has to be totally independent of any aid from 

 the huntsman. 



On the other hand, men like Mr. Charles Mather, of 

 the Brandywine Hunt, and Mr. A. H. Higginson, of 

 the Middlesex, claim that the English hound, when 

 bred in this country (and not merely a "drafted" 

 hound, sent away from England because of some fault), 

 can be developed so as to be quite as capable of hunt- 

 ing the fox in America as the native hound, and is 

 more amenable to discipline, and breeds closer to 

 type. These gentlemen have demonstrated the truth 

 of their contention by giving as good sport with their 

 pure-bred English hounds as may be found anywhere 

 in the country. 



The question, however, as to whether to use either 

 the pure-bred English hound or the cross between the 

 best American bitches and English hounds, or the 

 native American hound, still remains unsettled in the 

 minds of many hound men. Matches between the 

 English hound and the American hound, such as that 

 held in 1905 in the Piedmont Valley, between the 

 Grafton (American) and the Middlesex (English draft), 



