238 THE DIARY OF A HUNTSMAN 



had gone with it, for a throaty hound has in- 

 variably a good nose ; and that hounds were so 

 until the end of the last century nearly all sporting 

 pictures of hounds will prove. It happened, some 

 years since, a gentleman purchased an old-estab- 

 hshed pack of hounds and wi'ote to request the 

 writer to go and look at them before he sent away 

 those he intended to di-aft. After seeing those which 

 were to be sent away, and inquiring why they were 

 fixed on, he was told because they were so throaty. 

 The reply was, "As you are going to hunt a 

 strange country, if you wish to show sport, and 

 kill your foxes, keep those hounds, for, depend 

 upon it, they were originally kept for their blood, 

 not for their beauty." These hounds were kept, 

 and during the next season the gentleman wrote 

 to say that he had great sport, but that if he 

 had parted with those throaty hounds, he should 

 not have killed one fox in ten that he had done, for 

 they were the only hounds that could hunt a cold 

 scent. Of course the plan is to breed for both 

 beauty and goodness ; and it is much to be regretted 

 that a cross so seldom nicks, as one could wish, 

 without faults of generations back coming out, one 

 side or the other — probably not half a dozen times 

 in a man's lifetime — owing to the age of the hound 



