THE BLOODHOUND. 



Such animals wore employed by our ancestors in the pursuit of game. 

 Deloraine says of "dark Musgrave :" 



" 'Twas pleasure, as we look'd behind, 

 To see how thou the chase wuulil wind 

 Cheer the dark bloodhound on hi* way, 

 And with the bugle rouse the fray." 



Tims Sir William of 



In proof of the skill of " the stark moss 



As certainly were they engaged in the pursuit of men. 

 trooper,". Sir William of Deloraine, it is said that he, 



" By wily turns and desperate bound*, 

 Had baffled Percy's best bloodhound*." 



To obtain such skill became important to the kings and heroes of Scotland, as well as to the border- 

 riders. Barbour informs us that Robert Bruce was repeatedly tracked by sleuth-dogs.* On one 

 occasion, he escaped by wading a bow-shot down a brook, and ascending into a tree by a branch which 

 overhung the water ; thus, leaving no trace on land of his footsteps, he baffled the scent. 



A sure way of stopping the dog was to pour blood upon the track, which destroyed the discrimin- 

 ating fineness of the scent. A captive was sometimes sacrificed on such occasions. Henry the 

 Minstrel tells a romantic story of Wallace, founded on this circumstance r The hero's little band had 

 been joined by an Irishman, named Fawden, a dark, savage, and suspicious character. After a sharp 

 skirmish at Black-Erneside, Wallace was forced to retreat with only sixteen followers. The English 

 pursued with a border sleuth-watch, or bloodhound. 



" In Gebderland there was that hratchet bred, 

 Liker of scent, to follow them that fled ; 

 So was he used in Eske and Liddesdail, 

 Till she gat blood, no fleeing might avail." 



lu the retreat Fawden, being tired, or affecting to be so, would go no further. Wallace, having in vain 

 argued with him, in hasty anger, struck off his head, and continued the retreat. When the English 

 came up, their hound stayed upon the dead body. 



u The sleuth stopped at Fawden, till she stood, 

 Nor farther moved fr.t' time she found the blood." 



Bloodhounds were used by Henry VIII. in France; by Elizabeth in the Irish wars, Essex having 

 no fewer than 800 of them in his army ; ajtd, with the greatest inhumanity, by the Spauiards in Peru. 

 This breed was kept up by the Buccleuch family on their border estates, where deer-stealing and other 

 acts of violence were common, till within the eighteenth century. Robertson, the historian, describing 

 the war carried on by Columbus, against the natives of St. Domingo, or Hayti, .says : -"The body which 

 took the field consisted only of two hundred foot, twenty horse, and tweuty large dogs ; and how 

 strange soever it may seem to mention the last as comprising part of a military force, they were not, 

 perhaps, the least formidable and destructive of the whole, when employed against naked and timid 

 Indians." He afterwards alludes to the fierce onset of the dogs as producing great constor- 

 nation. 



During the last century bloodhounds were kept by rangers and park-keepers in England, to detect 

 poachers and sheep-stealers. Somerville, too, well described one of this remarkable breed as pursuing 

 the task that had been committed to him : 



" Soon the sagacious brute, his curling tail 

 Flourished in air, li>w bending, plies around 

 His busy nose, the steaming vapour snuffs 

 Inquisitive, nor leaves one turf untried, 

 Till, conscious of the recent stains, his heart 

 Beats quick ; his snuffling nose, his active tail, 

 Attest bis joy ; then, with deep-opening mouth, 

 That makes the welkin tremble, he proclaims 

 Th' audacious felon. Foot by foot he marks 



His winding way, while all the list'ning crowd 

 Applaud his rrasonings; o'er the watery ford, 

 Dry sandy heaths, and stony barren hi'ls ; 

 O'er beaten paths, with men and beast detained ; 

 1'iif-rring he pursues till at the cot 

 Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat 

 The caitiff vile, redeems the captive priy, 

 So exquisitely delicate his senee." 



A nobleman, of the last century, wishing to know if a young bloodhound he had was well 



Probably from slut, the track of a deer. 



