262 GOOD SPORT 



luncheon, he said : " The entry we have been look- 

 ing at to-day seems to be keeping up the good name 

 of the Bel voir pack. As regards their necks, 

 shoulders, legs, and feet, they are perfection, and 

 this fact reflects much credit upon the gentlemen 

 who have walked the puppies as well as the breeders 

 of the hounds, for unless young hounds have their 

 hberty, these points are not properly developed. In 

 addition to this we are pleased to notice the hberty 

 of action on the flags. The way they go skimming 

 about the kennel yards indicates they \\dll be able 

 to slip along whenever they get a fox in front of 

 them, and make somebody look sharp if they mean 

 keeping with them. I have a great deal to be 

 thankful for, for though I have been rather severely 

 crushed, I feel I am so far recovered to hope to 

 see foxhounds in the field in a few weeks' time." 

 Alas, the follomng December poor Tom Firr went 

 over to the great majority, passing peacefully away 

 at the age of sixty-one, some three years after his 

 retirement from the post of huntsman to the Quorn. 

 Captain Pennell Elmhirst's note on the Belvoir 

 kennel in the pages of the Field, July 1903, says : 

 " That the Belvoir maintain its supremacy is due 

 to no fashionable prejudice, but to the fact that it 

 keeps moving onwards, continually solidif3nng its 

 type and rising upwards towards its highest ex- 

 amples. To quote the words that have long con- 

 stituted the principle of management, * Belvoir 

 never goes very far from itself,' but after rare 

 occasional trials outside, invariably returns quickly 

 to the parent stock. Of course, the Belvoir hounds 

 are extraordinarily inbred, but, so far from this 

 leading to deterioration, it has allowed them to 

 acquire a pattern of strength and symmetry wholly 

 unrivalled. To-day they stand out more beautiful. 



