70 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



fifty years, the animal which we now call " pure 

 harrier." All hounds known in Britain are more 

 or less blended or manufactured varieties. This 

 is, of course, perfectly natural, for the reason that 

 during all ages mankind has been constantly aiming 

 at altering and improving his stock, whether it be 

 sheep, cattle, horses, or dogs. Of the races of hound 

 left to us at the present day, probably the oldest and 

 least changed is the rough-coated, noble-looking otter- 

 hound. With this I should place the bloodhound. 

 Next comes the beagle, which, although altered a good 

 deal in many packs from the type of three or four 

 hundred years ago, is nevertheless of very ancient 

 ancestry. This is especially so in the West of England. 

 The foxhound and harrier, as we now know them, 

 are, as I have said, manufactured races ; the foxhound 

 especially, magnificent animal though it is, being a 

 most skilful blend of various hunting hounds, selected 

 with the greatest care during innumerable generations^ 

 and uniting in its frame qualities unsurpassed for the 

 particular chase in which it is employed. 



Some of our existing harrier packs can boast a 

 more than respectable antiquity. Sir John Heathcoat 

 Amory's are, as I have said, descended from Parson 

 Froude's pack, which were hunted by that sporting 

 divine early in the last century, and were mainly of 

 Southern hound blood. Sir John Heathcoat Amory's 

 pack are now all white, or badger-pied, and are de- 

 scribed by the owner as having no touch of foxhound 

 blood. The Penistone, a Yorkshire pack, trace their 

 descent so far back as 1260, when Sir Elias de Midhope 

 was Master. The Wilsons of Bromhead Hall are 

 stated to have mastered the pack during the fourteenth, 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Wortleys 

 of Wortley Hall, the Riches of Bullhouse Hall, and 



