MODERN HARRIERS 85 



various types, will be found not uninteresting. A good 

 hound, it has been said over and over again, can never 

 be of a bad colour. The majority of packs nowadays 

 show on the whole much more of what we know as 

 foxhound colour than any other. But in many packs, 

 especially in the West and South of England and in 

 Wales, may be found a good deal of the blue-mottle 

 or blue-pied colouring, which, in the opinion of many 

 good judges, present and past, is the true harrier type. 

 By breeding and careful mating and selection it is 

 quite possible, within a comparatively brief period, 

 to re-make, as it were, and re-shape a pack of hounds. 

 I have watched very closely for some years the im- 

 provement of a pack of harriers in the South of England. 

 Originally these were of Southern hound strain, a good 

 deal crossed with other blood. Seven or eight years 

 ago three or four good blue-mottle bitches were pro- 

 cured from Devon and Sussex. They were, obviously, 

 strongly of Southern hound strain, with long ears, 

 old-fashioned heads, and grand voices. These were 

 judiciously mated with some of the best hounds — for 

 work as well as for looks — in the pack ; and at the 

 present time these harriers have a very handsome 

 appearance, a large proportion of them showing 

 strong traces of the blue-mottle blood. Such a blend, 

 judiciously strengthened by just a faint foxhound 

 cross — obtained through harrier blood — for the purpose 

 of adding speed and correcting faults in shape often 

 noticeable in pure harrier blood, gives, in my judg- 

 ment, an almost perfect pack of hounds for hunting 

 hare. This is what has been arrived at in the pack 

 I have in my mind, the Hailsham, hunting about 

 Pevensey Marshes and the surrounding district. They 

 average nineteen inches, have plenty of pace, and 

 wonderful noses ; and their grand Southern hound 



