CHAPTER VIL 



WELSH HOUNDS. 



Many writers have more or less casually alluded to 

 Welsh hounds, but their information does not go 

 beyond telling us that they resemble foxhounds in 

 all but coat, which in the Welsh variety ought to 

 be wiry haired and not quite smooth. And as a 

 fact we know so little, or absolutely nothing, about 

 the origin of the ordinary English foxhound, that it 

 is no wonder we are equally lacking in information 

 concerning the Welsh hounds, whose praises have 

 so often been sung. What the hounds were like 

 which are included in the rules and regulations of 

 Howell the Good, there are no means of knowing ; 

 nor, as far as one can discover, is there any book or 

 magazine article which attempts to sketch, even in 

 the merest outline, the history of the Welsh hounds ; 

 whilst, equally notew^orthy and somewhat odd, no 

 drawing or illustrations of them have hitherto 

 appeared in any book about dogs. 



In the hunting treatise of Edmond de Langley, 



