Every village in England has its beagles, and nothing is more enjoyable than an 

 old-fashioned fox hunting, or chase, where -hounds belonging to many owners are 

 packed together, and, jumping a fox, they run him for hours on end, their glorious 

 music resounding throughout the woods and delighting the ear of the sportsman. The 

 American foxhound appears to have more of the old harrier or English southern hound 

 blood in him than is allowed to remain in the hound of the English. There are some 

 broad-headed and long-eared and heavy-lipped hounds in the United States which 

 remind the observer of the hounds of France and other Continental countries hounds 

 that still bear a good deal of resemblance to the old talbot-hounds the hounds of the 

 Normans. Finer and finer the English bred their hounds as stag hunting gave way to 

 fox hunting. The old staghound was only one remove from the talbot, and he was 

 a big and picturesque creature and these hounds are to be found in France today. 



Hunting is a foremost sport all over the world, and there can be little wonder that 

 the spirit and -standing of the peoples may be gauged from the quality of their hounds 

 The panoply of the chase is among the more glorious sights of the world, and in the 

 pursuance of the various sports connected with hounds, large and small, a vast amount 

 of money is spent, and a large number of persons employed, in the piping times of 

 peace. 



The beagle should be 15 inches or under, measured across the withers. If he is 

 over that height he becomes a harrier ; ; and a harrier over 19 inches becomes a fox- 

 hound, and a foxhound standing 24 inches at the shoulders and 30 inches round his 

 girth is indeed a splendid creature and a beautifully proportioned one to boot. The 

 hound is indeed a beauty and a joy forever ! 



In England alone there are more than 800 packs of hunting dogs. Roughly, there 

 are 326 owners of hunts or hunting establishments in France. Some of these hunts 

 have 50 or 60 couples. In Belgium foxhounds are kept, and the chief packs of hounds 

 in Germany are the Royal Hounds, at Potsdam, and the Hanover Hounds. They both 

 hunt the drag and the boar. The conditions of hunting in Austria and Hungary are 

 much better than in Germany. It is a good wild country and full of foxes. The 

 Roman hounds are world renowned. Fox hunting was introduced into Italy by Lord 

 Chesterfield in 1842, and the sport has flourished ever since. In Spain the Calpa fox- 

 hounds show much sport in the vicinity of Gibraltar. 



In the United States there are about forty well-known and properly established 

 packs of foxhounds. Throughout the Indian Empire there are numerous packs, many 

 of them being of the bobbery or mixed kind. The jackal is the most frequently hunted 

 animal. The Bombay Hounds are the chief pack in India. 



In South Africa the jac'kal is hunted with foxhounds, and a single hound is used 

 to drive buck to the rifle or gun. American foxhounds have recently been introduced 

 to British East Africa for the purposes of hunting lion. These hounds have been of 

 great use in bagging such large and dangerous game, and in the case of cheetah and 

 other tree-climbing animals, the American foxhounds have not had the slightest diffi- 

 culty in driving their quarry at such a pace and with so much persistence that the large 

 cat is glad to see the supposed shelter of a thorn or other tree standing out like 

 a sentinel on the vast expanse of plains. 



The foxhound, the harrier and the beagle are also of great use in Africa for 

 driving, certain of the antelope, which keep in the bush, to the gun, and a good deal 

 of sport may be had in some of the rivers otter hunting, and when otter hunting, a 

 monitor, or huge lizard-like creature, is often started in a swamp, and the reptile, 

 taking to the water like an otter, he will provide a good deal of sport. The otters in 

 the Eastern province of South Africa are plentiful and of good size. The rivers are 

 very huntable, for they are not deep and there is no great width or volume of water at 

 certain seasons of the year. There is much sport to be had on the Mooi River, in 

 Natal, where a pack of pure-bred otter hounds is kept. And these hounds will not 

 only hunt the water dog but the aforesaid African monitor. Everywhere the hound 

 is useful and especially is this the case in a big and open country like Africa, where a 

 dog is required to be not only a hunter, but a guard and a friend. 



In Australia there is a good deal of hunting and the Melbourne hunt is a well- 

 organized institution. Australia is a country in which all animal life increases and mul- 

 tiplies rapidly. In 1864 one dog fox and two vixens were imported from England. There 

 soon became enough foxes in Victoria to last the colony, now the province, forever. But 

 red deer and kangaroos are sometimes hunted with foxhounds, and in Western Austra- 

 lia, in the neighborhoods of Freemantle, Perth and Kalgoorlie, there has been much 

 sport experienced in hunting the brush-tailed kangaroos. This form of hunting was 

 introduced by Mr. Cairns Candy in the late nineties. 



In Tasmania, the island province off the main Australian continent, there is some 

 hunting with properly constituted and maintained packs of hounds. In this lovely 



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