92 Modern Dogs. 



billiard room, years after he had given up hunting, 

 and, the conversation drifting into matters of the 

 chase, the squire got upon the line of Furrier, and 

 there was no getting him off it. He expatiated on 

 the merit of this hound as the best ever bred ; and it 

 must be remembered also that, when Osbaldeston 

 bred hounds, he supported his opinion by breeding 

 from this hound to such an extent that he could take 

 a pack into the field made up entirely of Furrier's 

 progeny. 



'' Harry Ayris lived, I think, sixty years with the 

 Fitzhardinge pack, and in an interview with him 

 about fifteen years ago, when the old fellow was over 

 eighty, I put the question straight to him as to the 

 best hound he had ever seen. ' Cromwell,' was the 

 ready reply, ' and no man ever hunted another like 

 him.' It was difficult, then, to get Harry Ayris off 

 the line of Cromwell ; and it was no easier task to 

 make the late John Walker believe that a better fox- 

 hound had ever been bred than Sir Watkin Wynn's 

 Royal. Lord Henry Bentinck had several favourites, 

 and, for the benefit of those after him, he left a 

 written record, showing how these particular hounds 

 excelled their fellows. This is in manuscript still, I 

 believe ; but I am perfectly assured that the leading 

 hound breeders of the day have seen it, and hence 

 the great leaning of late years towards the pack that 



