310 HUNTING TOURS. 



conceded that very marked improvements are 

 visible in many provincial packs, yet those im- 

 provements are principally to be attributed to 

 the infusions they have procured from the 

 fashionable kennels, where a long series of 

 time has permitted those types of excellence 

 to be cultivated which are indispensable to the 

 perpetuation of similar perfections. 



There may be diversities of opinions, or 

 rather of tastes, concerning size or colour, 

 but there can be but one standard as regards 

 beauty of outline, and the very important 

 formations of shoulders, backs, loins, thighs, 

 legs, and feet. That hounds of the present 

 day have acquired those perfections of sym- 

 metry with a sacrifice of hunting accomplish- 

 ments is an argument in which I am by no 

 means prepared to acquiesce. That any person 

 can offer an acceptable reason why a great, 

 coarse, plain hound should possess olfactory 

 powers of a higher order, greater industry and 

 endurance, or that most indispensable property 

 of turning on the line, and, moreover, those 

 beautiful instincts commonly denominated 

 sense, — than a hound of finer proportion, 

 elegance, and fashion, is to me a most inex- 

 plicable problem. The science of physiognomy 



