240 SYSTEM OF KENNEL AND 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



Forming a pack of foxhounds — Entered and unentered dVafts — Dog 

 shows — Foxhunters' Club — "Weak understandings — Saffron — The 

 tape — Length of body or limb — Stud-hounds — A leaf from the 

 genealogical tree. 



The collecting of a pack of foxhounds is a work of 

 time and labour, as well as attended with great 

 expense ; and w^e believe to purchase an entire 

 pack, when practicable, will prove cheaper in the 

 end. Old drafts are generally composed of faulty 

 hounds, or those unable to run up with the rest ; 

 and these last, the only individuals good for any- 

 thing, are generally good for nothing after one 

 season's work ; in fact, their work is done before 

 they are dismissed from their own kennel. Amongst 

 the lot will be found some, perhaps, lame in the 

 stifle, others mute, others noisy ; so that out of 

 these fifty or sixty couples of castaways, five or six 

 may hold together, but the great majority of 

 greater use in the orchard, under apple-trees, than 

 in the field. 



Whatever huntsmen may say about their entered 

 drafts, their qualifications may be rightly estimated 

 by the price paid for them, as it is not likely a 

 hound worth from ten to twenty pounds would be 

 sold for thirty shilhngs, unless there were a screw 



