HOUND BREEDING. 3 



and cause disappointment. Many say it is hard to 

 get bitches of the best strains, but do men really try, 

 do they look into pedigrees ? I have often been 

 amused at the conversation of men, whose real 

 knowledge of hunting is very limited, and hound- 

 breeding nil, discussing the latter subject, and 

 running down certain packs of hounds, saying they 

 are bred for Peterborough, and not for W'Ork, etc., etc. 

 My argument to them is that amongst hounds bred 

 from the best strains of blood, or, to put it in another 

 way, fashionably bred, there certainly are some that 

 do not enter as they should do and are slack, but 

 does not the same thing occur in a far greater 

 degree in hounds whose pedigree does not bear 

 inspection ? This latter point is often forgotten by 

 these would-be critics. 



Some men take to hound breeding at once, and 

 seem to be able to follow the best lines without any 

 trouble, w^hile others, who breed a lot of rubbish at 

 first, gradually come to it, and often end up by 

 breeding a really good pack of hounds, their 

 experience of the other sort preventing them taking 

 any further steps in that direction. 



I would almost say, if you cannot buy really w^ell- 

 bred bitches, beg, borrow, or steal them. Take the 

 greatest pains, when you have got them, to mate 

 them with the very best stallion hound, with one or 

 two lines of the same blood, that you possibly can, and 

 this is always open for almost anyone to do, thanks 



