120 SYSTEM OF KENNEL AND 



ticular time, but that is not the time for deciding 

 the question whether they have too much or too 

 little tongue. Hounds may be too free with their 

 tongues without being absolutely babblers, yet this 

 freedom of speech generally ends in babbling when 

 they grow older. We don't like to hear a hound 

 throw his tongue too readily to cry when a fox is 

 first found. We may know for a certainty that 

 old Bounty never told a lie, but we don't approve 

 her proclaiming a find without her own nasal ex- 

 perience of the fact. Again, in hunting, a hound 

 may say too much about it, without being decidedly 

 noisy or a babbler. " Touch and go '' ought to be 

 the motto of a foxhound. We have heard of old 

 blue-mottled harriers so delighted with the discovery 

 of a scent, when juniors of this fraternity had 

 failed to unravel it, that they would raise their 

 heads on high with a loud yell, and even spring 

 back a few spaces in an ecstasy of enjoyment at 

 their success. 



It is all very well on paper, writing of hounds 

 enjoying a scent, and in the field this sort of thing 

 may suit harriers, but it is destructive of sport 

 with foxhounds. Hundreds — we may say thou- 

 sands — of times we have seen foxhounds running, 

 not hunting, with a scent so queer (the most ex- 

 pressive term we can use), that not even a whimper 

 could be heard. Still they were going — running 

 briskly, feeling secure the scent was before them, 

 yet not so secure that they would proclaim it as a 

 certainty. This is, or ought to be, the distinguish- 

 ing characteristic of a pack of foxhounds — always 



