SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 41 



themselves, or satisfiictorily to their owners ; but 

 this longitude must be limited, or it is productive 

 of weakness. So also as regards the foot — too 

 great latitude denotes an animal better fitted for 

 aquatics than gymnastics. A splayfooted hound 

 may go along tolerably well in a moist country, 

 and with moist weather, but his deficiencies will 

 become manifest in a hilly or flinty one. 



We must refer to the hackneyed motto, as the 

 rule to be observed on these occasions — medio 

 tidissimus ibis. A foxhound without sound 

 understanding from head to foot will not pay for 

 his porridge. The size of his head ought to be big 

 enough to hold plenty of brains, and his feet 

 strong enough to carry his knowledge-box, with 

 the frame thereto belonging, to the end of a run 

 more lengthy than the Pytchley, February 2nd, 

 1866. By the way, we have not the most remote 

 wish or intention to speak or write in disparaging 

 terms of this great run in the present era, like 

 a certain " Greybeard," and we don't agree with 

 him in thinking that " half a dozen Lancashire 

 men on foot " w^ould have performed the distance 

 in about the same time. It may appear rather 

 contradictory, when we are always lauding the 

 speed of foxhounds in the present age, that a first- 

 rate pack, in a first-rate countrj^, the greater part 

 being pasture, should take tJiree Jiours and forty- 

 Jive rainutes, as stated in " Bail}^," to run over 

 some twenty-six miles of ground — the pace, on an 

 average, not exceeding six miles and a half an 

 hour. But then allowance must be made for 



