60 MUSIC AND COLOURS OP THE PACK. 



Those dogs however, with all their savage thirst of blood, are trained, particularly 

 by the Spaniards in America, to hold the victim, and not to lacerate, or take life, 

 but at command. 



In the qualities of the hound, the most extraordinary and least easy to be 

 accounted for, on any principle of physics, or on any analogy, is the peculiar 

 power of adhering to, or hunting one particular scent, to whatever distance it may 

 be diffused, and amidst the greater variety of others, whether congenial with it, or 

 entirely op|>osite. This exquisite and discriminating sense seems to be most per- 

 fect in the Bloodhound and the Southern Hound, and to be considerably dimi- 

 nished in our modern crosses, as is evident by our Fox Hounds, so often changing 

 the scent and the hunt, and the packs sometimes parting on a new find, and 

 where game is plenty. In this rase, ;i slow pack of the old blood is more steady. 



The Music and Harmony of the Pack, so much considered in former days, 

 when our Queens and their Maids of Honour graced the hunted field, and 

 probably rode astride across the country, entering into all the pleasures, and 

 defying- all the perils of the Chase, with something like a masculine resolution, 

 are in our times held as matter of interior consequence ; lightness of form, elegance, 

 speed, and a fine eye, being esteemed the leading qualifications in a hound. There 

 \\ere several packs within our knowledge formerly, which had a ringing', pleasant, 

 and inspiriting-, or a dee]), mellow, and sonorous cry ; that is to say, to a certain 

 decree, greatly capable of improvement, upon the ancient and more systematic 

 plan. The same may be remarked with respect to the harmony of colour; for 

 although a good dog', like a good horse, can never be of a bad colour, yet skill 

 and perseMTance, will produce good dogs, as well as ordinary ones, of a good 

 colour: and to a. true and enthusiastic Amateur, the labour, perseverance and 

 expence necessarily incurred, will prove an additional stimulus, and eAen exaltation 

 of the pleasure. Fashion, to be sure, is legitimately invested with a paramount 

 authority, in all things, and since authority decides that speed must be the exclu- 

 sive qualification in a Pack of Hounds, its votaries must submit, or be excluded 

 from the pale : if any Gentlemen of the Field however, may venture to deviate 

 and revolutionize to a certain degree, it should be those who hunt a deep and 

 romantic Country, interspersed with wood, rock, hill, and dale, where echo 

 triumphs in her shrill, loud, and full sounding attributes, and where the merits 

 and delights of a deep toned and musical pack, can be fully enjoyed and most 

 amply appreciated. The faculty of sight should also be gratified as well as that 

 of hearing, and harmony of colours in the dogs, is the great mean of that end. 

 Since we have crossed so deeply and improved so much, in one direct line, it may 

 not improbably be necessary, at this day, to make considerable additions to our 

 importations of the Southern Mound. 



But whether music or harmony of colours, or speed, or exquisite scenting, 

 or great power and stoutness in the pack, be a Gentleman's object, it is still of the 



