CHAPTER I. 



THE BLOODHOUND. 



Although many writers have endeavoured to find 

 the origin of the bloodhound in the Talbot of ancient 

 days, there is no reason to believe that the former 

 had as great a connecting link with the latter as the 

 foxhound and other hounds, of both this country and 

 of the Continent. We have been told of black 

 Talbots^ others white in colour, some tawny, whilst 

 pied, or brown white and tan, specimens have 

 repeatedly been alluded to. No doubt from these 

 our ordinary hounds have sprung ; but the heavier 

 and more powerful bloodhound must have arisen 

 from some other source. What that source was 

 there is no means of finding out satisfactorily, and 

 the origin of the bloodhound, like that of most other 

 varieties of the dog, is likely to remain an unknown 

 quantity. 



In many particulars the modern hound resembles 

 his progenitor of several hundred years ago, not in 

 appearance perhaps, but in character and in apti- 



B 



