SPORT WITH BASSET HOUNDS 293 



The crooked-legged bassets are in most favour, and 

 are regarded as the best representatives of their race. 

 They show a finer type of hound head, with the long 

 pendulous ears, and other points laid down as desirable 

 in this kind of hound. Bassets run in all colours, 

 foxhound colour, blue-mottle, lemon-and-white, hare- 

 pie, black-and-tan, and whole red. Sir Everett Millais, 

 who studied the type most closely, favoured the tri- 

 coloured variety, that is, a hound with a tan head 

 and a black-and-white body. This type is still much 

 fancied. His well known hound, " Model," weighed 

 forty-six pounds, and had the following measurements. 

 Shoulder height, twelve inches ; length, from tip of 

 nose to setting on of tail, thirty-two inches ; height 

 from ground, between fore-feet, two and three-quarter 

 inches. The texture of the coat is described as that 

 of a hound, by which one understands the modern 

 English foxhound.* 



In La Vendee, Luxembourg, Alsace-Lorraine, and 

 other parts, where coverts are extensive, the rough- 

 coated basset seems to be most in favour, but this variety 

 is, as a rule, much scarcer than the smooth-coated 

 hound. The basset is an independent, determined 

 kind of hound. He prefers to take nothing on trust, 

 but, instead of giving tongue and joining in the cry 

 of the other hounds, which have already owned the 

 scent, likes to work out the line for himself and then 

 raise his voice. He has an extraordinarily delicate 

 sense of scent. On the Continent this race was, 

 apparently, used very largely for shooting purposes, 

 hunting the country for different kinds of game, and 



* For further information on the basset, the reader may- 

 be referred to the works of Mr. Hugh Dalziel and Mr. Rawdon 

 Lee on British dogs, and to Sir Everett Millais' book on this 

 hound. 



