500 Modern Dogs. 



which would either hunt in front of the sportsman or 

 drive game slowly towards him. 



" This type of hound would be produced by again 

 breeding from the lowest and heaviest of his prede- 

 cessors, and, what with the weight in front and the 

 question of stability, the internal ligaments of the 

 carpus would give way, the fore-feet would turn out 

 so as to act as buttresses to the chest wall, and in 

 the animal thus produced we should find a hound of 

 full-sized body, of similar head and colour to the 

 hounds from which it sprang, identical in fact with 

 them except in this peculiar formation of the front 

 and hind feet. 



" Such undoubtedly is the manner in which the 

 Basset originated, and what is still more remarkable 

 is the fact that the tallest of the Bassets are the 

 straight-legged ones, the medium the half-crooked, 

 and the lowest the full-crooked, thus showing alone 

 the gradual change which has been wrought by man 

 to bring the great chiens couranfsdown to the dwarfs 

 or the Bassets of to-day. 



" Had this manufacture, as I may reasonably call 

 it, been limited to one breed of hound, we should 

 naturally find but one breed of Bassets, but this is 

 not so, since from the great variety of Bassets to be 

 found in the countries I have named, it is certain that 

 many breeds of hounds have been thus dealt with. 



