Norm A TENATlCA. 13' 



scribe all the sorts, aiul to give a statistical account of the divers " strains 

 of blood" which havo been celebrated in their time, -would be far too 

 tedious for my readers, and quite foreign to my present purpose ; the 

 follo^ying short account of the pedigrees of some of the principal packs 

 of the present day will suffice. The original stocks, from whence the 

 most fashionable sorts arc descended, are from the packs of the Earl of 

 Yarborough (the family of Pelham having possessed hounds of the same 

 breed for nearly two centuries) ; from that of the Earl of Fitzwilliam, 

 which may soon be entitled to celebrate their second jubilee ; the Duke 

 of Rutland's, wliich were bred from the packs purchased of Mr. Heron 

 and Mr. Calcraft, many years since ; Mr. Osbaldeston's (purchased by 

 Mr. Harvey Combe for two thousand guineas, and afterwards sold to 

 Lord Soutlaampton for the same sum), descended from the celebrated 

 pack of Lord Monson, and Lord Vernon's crossed with the Duke of Rut- 

 land's, and also from Lord Yarborough's ; Lord Middleton's, wMch 

 were directly descended from Lord Vernon's, Lord Middleton having 

 purchased that celebrated pack ; he afterwards sold them to Sir 

 Tatton Sykes ; Mr. Warde's ; and the Dulie of Beaufort's, which have 

 been in the family for a very considerable period, and are perhaps the 

 steadiest and best pack of hounds of their day ; Lord Lonsdale's de- 

 scended from Mr. Noel's, the commencement of which pack, Col. Low- 

 ther informed the author,' went back about 150 years, when they Avere 

 sold by Mr. Noel to Sir W. Lowther for 1,000 guineas. This celebrated 

 pack was sold at the hammer in lots in 1842. The sort known as the 

 old Pytchley blood, so justly celebrated when the property of the late 

 Earl Spencer, at that time Lord Althorp, were descended in a great 

 measure from the old Beaufort Justice, relationship to which renowned 

 dog many of the best hounds of the present day can proudly boast. 

 When Lord Althorp first took the Pytchley country he purchased Mr. 

 Warde's hounds for 1,000 guineas, in the year 1808, which country 

 Mr. Warde had been hunting for several seasons. The Pytchley coun- 

 try, so much celebrated in modern days, seems to have been equally 

 adapted to the " crafte of venerie" in ancient times, for "in the forty- 

 third year of Edward the Third, Thomas Engain held lands in Pytchley, 

 in the county of Northampton, by service of finding, at his OAvn cost, 

 certain dogs for the destruction of wolves, foxes, &c., in the counties of 

 Northampton, Oxford, Essex, and Buckingham."* 



There is a pack in Hampshire, rather low in stature, but possessing 

 great power, called the Vine Hounds ; they have now been under the 

 management of Mr. Fellowes, a relation of Lord Portsmouth, for many 

 years ; they were originally bred from drafts of the old Egremont blood, 

 by the late Mr. Chute, of the Vinej (the hunt taking its nomenclaturo 

 from that place) ; they have been much crossed by stud hounds from the 

 Duke of Beaufort's and Mr. Assheton Smith's kennels ; still there is a 

 great deal of the original character of the old fox-hound of days gone 

 by, which is visilile in no otlier established pack — an inclination to be 



* From Blunt's ancient tenures. 



t Over Mr. Chute's kennel door were these words — " MuUum in parvo." 



