NOTITIA VENATICA. 103 



There is an old story told of the Beaufort hounds, when tliat pack was 

 being first formed many years ago ; a new draft of hounds, v,'hich had 

 arrived on the pi'evious day, were let out into the paddock to he in- 

 spected, when they commenced running the crows, which frequently fly 

 skimming along close to the ground in windy weather ; and as the old 

 kennel man who had the care of them declared that he believed they 

 would have never been stopped if they had not, by the blessing of God, 

 changed for a jackass. Beckford also mentions the fact of the whipper- 

 in belonging to a pack of foxhounds being thrown from his horse when 

 at exercise, when the horse galloping off caused the hounds to break 

 away after him, they being full of rest and wildness ; after which, find- 

 ing themselves without control, they commenced rioting, and, falUng 

 upon a flock of sheep, destroyed many of them before they could be 

 stopped. 



It was not a very uncommon practice in former days to try young 

 hounds, before they were entered, with a drag or train scent. From an 

 old collection of hunting memoranda in my possession, which belonged 

 to an uncle of mine who was a worthy D.D.* and a real lover of fox- 

 hunting, and who passed many a happy winter in hunting with the 

 hounds of the late Lord Yarborough and Mr, Meynel, I have taken the 

 following extract, relative to the hounds of the latter gentleman. 



" Lord Thanet's Gallant and Gameboy were got by Brusher, out of 

 a daughter of Lord Chedworth's Gamester. Crane brought with 

 him the dam of that bitch when he came to Lord Thanet. Brusher 

 was bred by Lord Ossory, and supposed to be got by Mr. Taylor's 

 Rivers ; of the same litter with the dam of Gameboy and Gallant, there 

 were nine in the whole, all remarkably good-winded and speedy, though 

 coarse-looking hounds ; they were called the ' Royal Family, ' from 

 their excellence. However, this litter were most of them to have been 

 drafted on account of their plainness, but Crane begged they might be 

 tried u]i a trailed scent before they went, and in running this trailed 

 scent the whole family distinguished themselves in a very remarkable 

 manner." 



Many matches are on record of hounds running a trailed scent ; and 

 in or about the year 1808 or 1809, the late Mr. Digby Legard, Avho at 

 that time hunted the country now hunted by Sir Tatton Sykes, made a 



='= Dr. Vyner was the intimate friend and companion of the first Lord Yarbro', 

 passing the hunting season at Brocklesby for many years. He was a prebendary of 

 Canterbury, and also held two livings in the neighbourhood of the Brocklesby Hunt, 

 Withern and Authorpe. He was also an intimate friend of the celebrated Mr. Mey- 

 nel, with whom he occasionally hunted. Dr. Vyner was considered not only a first- 

 rate judge of breeding hounds, and everything connected with their work, both in 

 the kennel and the field, but one of the most elegant and accomplished horsemen 

 that ever steered a hunter across a country, which was the more remarkable at that 

 period, when every young man could not ride to hounds a bit, as most of them can 

 at the present day. Amongst many good nags to be found in the Doctor's stable 

 was a magnificent roan horse, which was a present from Lord Yarborough, and which 

 had been given up by himself, his huntsman, and his whips, as a dreadful and in- 

 curable puller ; but the light hand and resolution of this sporting divine were match 

 for this Bucephalus, and he rode him gallantly for several seasons, by the aid of 

 merely a plain snaffle-bit. Dr. Vyner died in November, 1804. 



