2IO 



Modern Dogs. 



hound again. However, in a few days the 

 ''poacher" brought back the errant Bran, who 

 had, in fact, reached his old home before his master, 

 who was considerably astonished, on reaching his 

 cottage, to see his old companion rush forward 

 to meet him. The distance between Chillingham 

 and the man's cottage was about seventy miles, 

 and to take the shortest route, which Bran no 

 doubt did or he would have caught his master on 

 the road, he must have swum Loch Ericht. 



Naturally modern dog shows have done much to 

 re-popularise the deerhound, now that he is so 

 seldom required for that purpose for which, shall I 

 say, nature first intended him. How Httle he is used 

 in deer stalking may be surmised by a list that 

 appears in Mr. Weston Bell's monograph of the 

 variety (1892). Here some fifty-eight forests are 

 named, and in but about seven of them is the deer- 

 hound kept. The collie is now more frequently 

 trained and used to track the wounded stag, because 

 he works more slowly, and is therefore less liable to 

 unduly scare and alarm the deer. From the earliest 

 institution of dog shows, classes have been pro- 

 vided for the deerhound, and these have resulted 

 in a number of excellent animals being benched of 

 a uniformity and quality that our excellent friend 

 Charles St. John would scarcely have thought 



