34 DOMESTICATED HUNTING-DOGS. 



these external qualifications were added great speed and strength, 

 combined with endurance and courage, while the sagacity and 

 docility of the dog made him doubly valuable. He was used for 

 coursing the deer, but his nose was good enough for hunting, even a 

 cold scent, as was the case with all of his breed. Whether or not 

 the deerhound can now be procured h*a state of purity, I am not 

 prepared to say, but that they are extremely rare, is above dispute, 

 though there are numberless animals resembling them in form, but 

 all more or less crossed with the foxhound, bloodhound, bulldog, 

 etc., and consequently not absolutely pure. Mr. Scrope himself, 

 with all his advantages, could not succeed in obtaining any, and 

 had recourse to the cross of the greyhound with the foxhound, 

 which, he says, answered particularly well ; as, according to his 

 experience, "you get the speed of the greyhound with just enough 



of the nose of the foxhound to answer your purpose In point 



of shape, they resemble the greyhound, but they are larger in the 

 bone and shorter in the leg. Some of them, when in slow action, 

 carry the tail over the back like the pure foxhound ; their dash in 

 making a cast is most beautiful, and they stand all sorts of rough 

 weather." He advises that the first cross only should be employed, 

 fearing that, as in some other instances, the ultimate results of breed- 

 ing back to either strain, or of going on with the two crosses, would 

 be unsatisfactory. " Maida," the celebrated deerhound belonging 

 to Sir Walter Scott, was a cross of the greyhound with the blood- 

 hound, but some distance off the latter. The bulldog infusion has 

 the disadvantage of making the deerhound thus bred, attack the 

 deer too much in front, by which he is almost sure to be impaled 

 on the horns, so that, in spite of the high courage of the breed, it 

 is from this cause quite useless in taking deer. 



The rough Scotch greyhound, as used for coursing, averages 

 about 26 inches in the dog, and 22 or 23 inches in the bitch ; but 

 as above remarked, Us use is almost abandoned in public, and 

 those which are still bred are either used in private, or are kept 

 entirely for their ornamental properties, which are very consider- 

 able, and, as they resemble the deerhound, they are very commonly 

 passed off for them. They are of all colors, but the most common 



