124 Modern Dogs. 



I confess myself rather disappointed with Mr. 

 Jeilerys' black and tans, as they were not so good 

 in either feet or ribs as I expected to find them. 

 Sir Talbot Constable began to breed such hounds 

 as these about thirty-five years ago, by crossing 

 beagles with St. Huberts, and then breeding in 

 and in. This being so, Mr. Jefferys may well 

 find the puppies difficult to rear, as he says they 

 are. He is endeavouring to perpetuate and harden 

 the strain by crossing with a so called smooth coated 

 Welsh harrier, black, or black and tan in colour. 

 Mr. Jefferys claims for his hounds that they are one 

 of the few packs of harriers without any admix- 

 ture of foxhound blood, but what they lose in this 

 respect they gain in another, for underneath them 

 there lurks some of the bloodhound nature, and I am 

 told they are excellent at carefully working out a 

 cold scent, and that they take ''rating" badly. 

 However, they are interesting hounds, evidently 

 about t8^ inches, and I believe that they received 

 quite their due when in the ring at Peterborough in 

 1 89 1, and at Bath the following year. Not long ago 

 I came across one of Mr. Jefferys' strain in the 

 Oxenholme kennels, an old hound of excellent 

 shape and form, beautiful in type, but not quite 

 so clean in front as he had been when in his 

 prime. 



