146 LONG TAILS AND SHOUT TAILS. 



hounds and horses. Fine noses are unquestionably 

 most desirable in all hounds and in all countries, but 

 are more indispensable in some instances than in 

 others. I should say, where the very finest are re- 

 quired is in an open bad-scenting country. Here 

 hounds have little or nothing in the shape of fences 

 to stop them ; and to carry on a slight scent at a 

 racing pace requires the ne plus ultra of a nose. 

 A very thickly enclosed country does not allow 

 hounds to go this pace ; consequently, if it is a bad- 

 scenting one, hounds are more disposed to stoop to a 

 scent. Speed is also a great desideratum in a hound ; 

 but, as in horses, there are two distinct sorts of speed, 

 something like that of the greyhound and the rabbit. 

 Now match these to run a hundred yards and start, 

 I am not quite clear but bunny would have the best 

 of it. He would get half the distance before the 

 longtail would get to half his speed. Perhaps we 

 should call the first quickness, the latter speed. It is 

 this sort of rabbit-like quickness we want both in 

 hounds and nags in a very inclosed country : both 

 must be able to get to their best pace at once. Put 

 me in a country where the fields were only an acre 

 each, and on a quick cob, I would beat old Vivian in 

 his palmy days, unless he is very much altered since 

 the time I knew him ten years since I mean, altered 

 as to being quick and handy : he is altered enough in 

 every other way. Now these different requisites a 

 huntsman has to get into his hounds for his particular 

 country, which can only be effected by judicious 

 crosses: nor are they to be obtained in the first 

 generation. Put a remarkably speedy, dashing, flighty 

 dog to a meek, steady, slow, close line hunting bitch, 

 or vice versa, we must not flatter ourselves we shall 



