SYMMETRY OF THE FOX-HOUND. 331 



with US, that there is much of the real character of 

 the hound in the sentence we have quoted from this 

 old writer; such as the long rather than round 

 head ; the wide nostrils (Pliny says they should 

 be flat, solid, and blunt ;) and the dry, fox's foot. 

 But the " bowed back"' appears to spoil all, unless 

 by it is meant that gentle rise in the loins which 

 the judge of hounds admires, and without which, 

 the late Mr. Chute of the Vine, in Hampshire, who 

 hunted that country for more than thirty years, gave 

 it as his opinion, no hound was able to maintain 

 his speed for an hour over hilly and ploughed coun- 

 tries when '-'- it carries ;" — a technical term for the 

 earth clino^inir to the foot, which it will do after a 

 slight frost on the preceding night ; necessarily 

 adding much to the natural weight of the hound. 

 Beckford gives us the modern fox-hound, and per- 

 fect, with the exception of the mention of one or 

 two material points. " His chest should be deep,'' 

 says he, " and his back broad ;" but he has omitted 

 a point much thought of by the modern sportsman, 

 namely, the hack ribs, which should also be deep, as 

 in a strong-bodied horse, of which we say, when so 

 formed, that he has a good " spur-place," a point 

 highly esteemed in him. Nor is either of these 

 writers sufficiently descriptive of the hinder-legs of 

 the hound ; for although the " large haunch and 

 well-trussed thigh" of the former denote power and 

 muscle, nevertheless there is a length of thigh dis- 

 cernible in first-rate hounds, which, like the " well 

 let-down hock" of the horse, gives them much su- 



