24 • XOTITIA VENATICA. 



ward, the vice indigenous to their nature prevents the possibility of their 

 being used for the purpose they were intended for. The old custom of 

 breeding " in-and-in," or the union of animals which might he nearly 

 related, has become amongst experienced persons quite exploded. Ne- 

 vertheless, that great authority, Mr. Meynel, only considered the produce 

 of brothers and sisters as being bred " in-and-in," and not those pro- 

 duced from a union of a parent and offspring ; as the daughter is only 

 half of the same blood as the father, and will probably partake in a great 

 degree of the properties of the mother. It is generally allowed that 

 animals thus produced greatly degenerate, and speedily become deficient 

 in true courage and bottom. The first thing that can recommend a 

 hound to notice, more especially for the purpose of propagation, is fine- 

 ness of nose.* Secondly, stoutness of constitution ; which consists, not 

 only in enduring work through a long chase, but keeping in condition, 

 and " conimg again," after a severe and protracted day's work. The 

 last is elegance in form, and beauty in general, desirable as it may ap- 

 pear ; and when you can get an animal in whom are united the three 

 above-named qualifications, he may justly be pronounced a perfect hound. 

 In selecting hounds for the purpose of breeding from them, the races 

 they come of should be regarded quite as much, if not more, than the 

 individuals themselves. We see, every day, remarkably handsome 

 hounds produce very plain stock, and vice versd. Mr. Osbaldeston's 

 Furrier was a hound by no means straight in his fore legs, a deformity 

 attributed to his having been tied up at his walk ; but his produce were 

 proverbially straight and clever. Mr. Muster's Lionel, a small, mean, 

 wiry-looking animal, got puppies which might have been supposed to be 

 the ofFspring of a dog twenty-four inches high. Another thing to be 

 well remembered is, that vice, in every shape, is much more difficult to 

 be eradicated than want of beauty, and, consequently, in a greater de- 

 gree to be guarded against. I have been asked, two or three times in 

 my life, which was the largest hound I ever saw ? Without entering 

 deeply into the detail of symmetry, weight, &c., I have no hesitation in 

 saying, a hound called Riddlesworth, bred by Mr. John Russel, when he 

 had the Warwickshire. He was so called out of compliment to Lord 

 Jersey, who was an intimate friend of Mr. Russel, and by whom, with 

 others, he had been walked in the neighbourhood of Middleton, and sent 

 home to the kennel the same spring in which his lordship's celebrated 

 horse, Riddlesworth, won the stake at Newmarket of that name, and af- 

 terwards the Derby. This hound I never saw measured, but he was 

 larger than any other hound in the kennel, by several inches, at the 



* Nose, and the qualities of line -hunting are, I fear, in these days of velocity, fast 

 going out of fashion ; and faulty as the systems pursued by the great " father of fox- 

 hunters" are considered (some of them certainly with much reason) by tlio scientific 

 performers of modern days, still the memory of Jolni Warde will be for over revered 

 hy »\\ ^^ lovers of fox-hunting," whether of the old or new school; for the well- 

 digested opinion he held with regard to " nose " beauty, stoutness, speed, and dash, 

 are but of little avail without it ; and so thought Mr. Nichol, of the N.F.II., when 

 he wrote — 



" Come, then, and see that nose and pace 

 Are the twin sisters of the chase." 



