94 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



is no doubt that a great deal of cry is a necessity, 

 and the fact of hounds being not very level in pace 

 does not so much matter ; for this reason hounds of 

 the rougher and more old-fashioned description may 

 do their work very well, and it may be that they are 

 really better suited to that sort of country. But 

 when the work has to be done in a rideable country, 

 especially over grass which carries a good scent, you 

 cannot afford to have tailing hounds ; the pace of the 

 leading hounds must be the pace of all the pack, or 

 you may have horses and hounds all mixed up together ; 

 the only way to acquire this levelness of pace is to 

 breed hounds with as good shoulders, backs and loins, 

 legs and feet, as you can ; and these qualities, with 

 the exception, perhaps, of the backs and loins, are 

 what the old-fashioned harriers were, and are, sadly 

 deficient in ; but then, their Masters did not want 

 them to go fast. 



" Well, to get these qualities we must go to the 

 foxhound — for there is nowhere else to get them 

 from — the modern foxhound being certainly the most 

 perfectly shaped animal, for combining the use of 

 nose and legs, in all the canine world, which indeed 

 is not to be wondered at, considering the accumulated 

 experience that has produced him. Nor do I think 

 that by making use of this experience we lose so much 

 hunting power as some people suppose. The Southern 

 and other older sorts of harriers appear to puzzle 

 out a bad scent better, it is true ; but I fancy that 

 their success is more apparent than real ; they make 

 more fuss and noise about it, but I have often seen 

 a foxhound or two working in a pack of regular harriers, 

 and have generally noticed that the foxhound held 

 its own well with the rest of them, even on the cold 

 scent that the others are supposed to be superior in 



