INTRODUCTORY 



and Berkeley Castle, packs of staghounds had long 

 been a part of the establishment. These hounds 

 were known as buckhounds, but they were not 

 always restricted to the chase of the deer, though 

 that was their chief business. Individual owners, 

 however, had long used them at times for the 

 pursuit of hare, fox, even wild cat and marten; 

 anything indeed which would show sport. The 

 hounds were heirlooms, and were bred carefully 

 for generations. But as time went on each owner 

 bred certain hounds for his particular fancy of 

 hare, deer, etc., and thus at the opening of the 

 eighteenth century there were many varieties of 

 buckhound existing in England; probably in Ire- 

 land also, though here there is a lack of any evi- 

 dence. This specialization of the hound in England 

 has a particular interest for the Kildare Hunt, 

 because, as I shall show, hounds which ran in 

 Kildare at a very early period owed much of their 

 blood to drafts from one of the great family packs 

 in England. 



At the time I am considering, there were at least 

 three distinct types of hound existing in England, 

 all of which must be regarded as ancestors of the 

 modern hound. These were the buckhound of 

 which I have written above, the southern hound, 

 and the fox beagle, which originated in the 

 northern counties. Of these the buckhound was 



II 



