128 The Sporting Dog 



year has lost a number of his best hounds from 

 an epidemic ; so that at the moment Mr. Charles 

 E. Mather, near his Avonwood seat in the Phila- 

 delphia country, is the unchallenged owner of the 

 best pack of the English type. Major Wadsworth 

 has also been using a dash of American blood in 

 the two years just passed. He has brought over 

 English blood at various times since 1876, first 

 from the Fitzhardinge, and at intervals from the 

 Sir Baltic Cunard, Badminton, d'Tredegar, and 

 other packs. Mr. Mather's original draft from 

 the Belvoir (Duke of Rutland's) hounds in Eng- 

 land has been vastly improved by careful breed- 

 ing, retaining its English " sortiness " and adding 

 something of American speed and nose. Mr. 

 Redmond Stewart of the Green Spring Valley 

 Hunt, Baltimore, through Mr. Mather's courtesy, 

 has been enabled to experiment with a cross 

 of these improved English hounds on American 

 stock. Mr. Stewart reports that two of his 

 best hounds are of this cross, but that he has not 

 obtained the " clarion tone " in tongue, which old 

 American fox-hunters regard as an essential qual- 

 ification. Our Canadian friends hunt, of course, 

 and have in the Montreal Hunt pack the only 

 hounds of late English blood regarded as rivalling 

 those of Major Wadsworth and Mr. Mather. Dr. 

 Mac Each ran is the ruling authority on hounds in 

 the Montreal Hunt and has kept up a high stand- 



