6i6 



Some American Sporting Dogs. 



DEER-HOUND. 



a sharp-nosed hound. Still, the fox-hound was introduced into 

 Virginia at a very early day, and in that State, and perhaps in one 

 or two others, he is to be found, and is still bred in comparative 

 purity, — not that I would infer that pure-bred hounds are not to be 

 seen elsewhere. Individuals are occasionally to be met with, and in 

 the pack of Mr. Joe Donahue, who hunts near Hackensack, are to be 

 found some fine specimens. Nor is it of any use for the most ardent 

 fox-hunter of to-day to import dogs from England. It was not until 

 the latter part of the seventeenth century that fox-hunting and the 

 breeding of fox-hounds were pursued systematically in Great Britain, 

 and it was probably in the middle of the succeed- 

 ing century that the sport was brought across 

 the water. It is a well-known fact that fox- 

 hunting was a fashionable amusement in Virginia 

 long prior to the Revolution, and it is not 

 improbable that the old style of Spanish pointer, 

 then fashionable in England, shortly followed the 

 fox-hound. To fox-hunting, however, we must give the first place as a 

 sport followed with the aid of a dog, and in spite of vicissitudes and 

 tribulations of every kind, the southern gentleman still follows his pack, 

 and enjoys the chase with the same zest as his forefathers. The 

 fox-hound of to-day in America, however, is a very 

 different animal from the hound now fashionable in 

 England, and the choicest draft from the Quorn or 

 the Pytchley would be found almost useless in a 

 country so thickly timbered and with such high rail- 

 fences as ours. In the earlier days of the colonies, 

 the hounds then imported were much better suited to the needs of 

 the sportsmen. A slow dog, such as was fashionable in the days of 

 Squire Western, before hunting came to more closely resemble 

 steeple-chasing (as it does now), was the dog which found favor 

 with our Virginia gentlemen, and whose characteristics have been 

 since adhered to. Not but that speed is desirable in a hound, but 

 in our country it would be difficult, if not impossible, to follow him ; 

 and the introduction into the pack of one dog such as is now 

 used in England would most probably result in spoiling the sport. 



Whatever may have been the quality of the first hounds imported, 

 some of the bluest blood of the English kennels was subsequently 



GREYHOUND. 



