26 Modern Dogs. 



a day when one might reasonably expect that hounds 

 would be unable to run a hundred yards without 

 a check. Still, all these bloodhounds, with their 

 quarry given from seven to fifteen minutes' start, hit 

 the line, and took it along at a " racing pace,'' it may 

 be called, when the ten or eight inches of snow are 

 taken into consideration. The keen north wind, too, 

 must have been against scent, and one of the best 

 trials of all was run in a blinding snowstorm. Surely, 

 then, these bloodhounds have olfactory powers of 

 more than average excellence ; at any rate, that 

 Monday they proved to us their possession of such. 

 The men who acted as quarry had no knowledge of 

 these hounds, no strongly smelling concoctions were 

 smeared over their boots ; and, indeed, they had 

 been standing over the shoe tops in snow during the 

 whole of the time the trials were taking place. So 

 the '^ clean shoe " must in the end have been sadly 

 water soaked. These bloodhounds did all we 

 expected them to do, even more, and we are quite 

 prepared to see the same hounds, under more favour- 

 able circumstances, hunt a man's trail or footsteps, 

 though they be two hours old. Running singly, 

 each hound was mute ; together they gave tongue, 

 and their voices were very fine. It may be interest- 

 ing to state that, in their earlier training, with slight 

 exceptions, including a hound or two he worked in 



