The Foxhound. 67 



the leading hound in forty-five minutes. At Newby 

 Bridge, at the foot of Windermere, in 1896, at a 

 trail promoted by Mr. Newby Wilson, a course of 

 ten miles was run in a little over thirty minutes, 

 though, in mentioning these records of hound pace, 

 it must not be forgotten that the distance is not 

 always exactly measured, nor are the times so care- 

 fully taken as is the case in foot and bicycle racing. 

 These hounds run almost or quite mute. 



The match at Newmarket, in 1792, between Mr, 

 Meynell and Mr. Smith Barry, was perhaps the first 

 means taken to ascertain the pace of foxhounds, 

 though almost a hundred years earlier hunting 

 had been followed. Blue Cap and Wanton, who 

 •came in first and second, ran the course of about 

 four miles on Newmarket Heath in a few seconds 

 over eight minutes, but these hounds had been 

 specially trained for the purpose. However, Colonel 

 Thornton's celebrated hound Merkin, whose portrait 

 appears in Daniel's *' Rural Sports," ran a heat of 

 four miles, which she completed in seven and a half 

 minutes. She was afterwards sold for four hogsheads 

 of claret and a couple of her whelps when she Vv^as bred 

 from.. In comparing the time of this race with that in 

 Rydal Park, the difference of the courses must be 

 taken into consideration, and it is extremely likely 

 that Merkin would have cut her feet to pieces and 



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