HOUND BREEDING. 23 



fed, and rather of the scratch order, met at a 

 village fourteen miles from their starting point. 

 The hounds, sixteen couples, were brought to the 

 meet by their huntsman alone on foot. He was 

 of the silent order, and carried a bugle and a 

 big whip. He threw off, hounds going just where 

 they liked. After drawing for ha4f an hour, a 

 hare was found by some of the field, and, con- 

 verging from all points of the compass, hounds 

 hit the line, and went off as hard as they could 

 go over a big pasture. The hare had turned short 

 at the bottom, but hounds went bowling along, 

 throwing their tongues, straight ahead for over 

 half a mile. 



At last they were collected and put on the 

 line, and when once they had settled down they 

 hunted one and a half brace of hares to death 

 before four o'clock. This was in March, and their 

 total for the season was fifty-two brace. They 

 certainly could hunt when settled down, but a 

 more uneven, fiat-sided, crooked lot of hounds 1 

 never saw. 



By this account I do not wish for a moment 

 to infer that all Southern hounds are babblers, but 

 in my experience most of the strain are much 

 too free with their tongues, and are generally 

 unhandy in the field. 



In Lancashire and the fell countries there are 

 many sterling good packs of Southern, or, as they 



