THE SIRES OF THE BELVOIR KENNEL 243 



Rallywood is diffused through every fashionable 

 kennel in England. Belvoir's Rallywood (1853), 

 by this illustrious sire, founded the present family 

 of hounds ; Belvoir's Weathergage (1876), Gambler 

 (1884), Dexter (1895), and their sons built it 

 up; Belvoir's Dasher (1900), Vagabond (1899), 

 Stormer (1899), Handel (1899), Weaver (1906), 

 and Ragman (1906), crowning the edifice. During 

 Sir Gilbert Greenall's sixteen seasons of mastership, 

 the policy has been to keep the kennel in the zenith 

 of vigour, with large entries of young hounds every 

 year. Entries of hounds vary in quality like every- 

 thing else, their numerical strength and value de- 

 pending on the vagaries of weather, effects of dis- 

 temper, and other causes. It is generally agreed 

 that the entries of two years, 1899 ^^^ 1906, 

 were of exceptional merit ; giving as they did a 

 group of stallion hounds whose fa.me is perpetuated 

 by descendants in the kennels throughout the 

 United Kingdom. The first great entry of 1899 

 included Vagabond, Handel, and Stormer ; that 

 of 1906, Ragman, Weaver, Warlock, and Hampton. 

 Many hours of contemplation are spent on the flags 

 at Belvoir every summer, by more than one hundred 

 masters of hounds and other experts, studying the 

 descendants of these sires. 



The usefulness of some animals may have been 

 impaired by breeding for points, but the foxhound 

 has never become the " sport of fashion," for his 

 beauty is more than skin deep ; wise men versed 

 in the science of the chase deciding what his con- 

 struction should be, to perform successfully the 

 strenuous duties entailed by a faster era of sport. 

 Modern perfection of symmetry of outline may be 

 compared with the finish of high-class machinery, 

 which can stand the test of time, and speed of 



