86 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



voices afford magnificent music over the wide country- 

 side. 



As to other colours, hare-pie, badger-pie, lemon-pie, 

 and even slate-grey or white may be occasionally 

 met with, especially in the West of England. Hounds 

 of these colours are usually of good old stock and are 

 seldom bad ones. Old English red, as it is called, is 

 also a famous hound colour in the West, although now 

 not often met with. The rare black-and-tan is another 

 good colour, usually associated with deep mellow 

 voices, antique heads, and great scenting powers. 

 Hounds of these old-fashioned colours, when they can 

 be procured, unless drafted for any real fault, are 

 valuable auxiliaries in the formation of a real harrier 

 pack. 



Having had due regard to height and colour, the 

 novice, in attempting the building up of a pack, must, 

 of course, be guided to a considerable extent by certain 

 hard-and-fast axioms well recognised among hunting- 

 men. Good looks and true shape are always to be 

 considered, yet they are not to be placed before every- 

 thing else. Many a splendid-looking hound is a skirter, 

 or a babbler, or runs mute, or has a poor constitution, 

 or some other fault which renders him worthless, an 

 encumbrance which should be drafted quickly from 

 the pack, or destroyed altogether. And, on the 

 contrary, many an odd-looking hound is a first-rate 

 performer. I remember well an old hound named 

 Captain in the pack I speak of, the Hailsham. He 

 was throaty, not well shaped, and had a poor head ; 

 yet as a worker he was unsurpassed, his nose was 

 unfailing, and as a road-hunter I never saw his equal. 

 Mated with the blue-mottle bitches I have spoken 

 of, his stock have done remarkably well, and are now 

 a source of strength to the pack. It is not wise, there- 



