2o6 HUNTING THE HARE 



satisfactory than if, as is too often the case, the 

 master is contented with using the best dog he 

 happens to have, rather than the best and most 

 suitable he can find. 



As to the number of hounds annually required, if 

 the pack is to continue improving it will be necessary 

 to send out to walk about three times as many 

 puppies as will be needed for the year's entry. It 

 will be found on an average of years that about one- 

 third of these will die at walk, either from disease or 

 accident, and of the two-thirds that come in, about 

 half will be either too large or too small, or have 

 some physical defects which unfit them for a place in 

 a really first-class pack of hounds. 



There is one pack of harriers which should 

 not pass without special mention in this chapter, 

 and that is the Brookside, which hunt on the Downs 

 near Brighton. This is a pack which has been in 

 existence for many years, with a very small admixture 

 of foxhound blood, indeed hardly any at all. Some 

 old pictures of these hounds, painted many years ago, 

 show they were then very high on the leg and 

 light in body ; and though they are now possessed of 

 far more bone and substance than formerly, they have 

 not entirely lost the old type shown in these pictures. 

 They are very level, full of quality, and beautifully 



