96 Forty Years Beagling 



ities for which the great majority of beagle men 

 are searching, and in my opinion rightly. Mr. 

 Buckstaff says, 'If the beagle is to be developed 

 for use in the field and beauty of form, our field 

 trials will bring about the desired result,' and im- 

 plies that the 'gaunt, long-legged, terrier-looking 

 dogs,' of which he has previously spoken, are the 

 ones which w4n the majority of prizes in our trials. 

 That is the subject on which I desire to say some- 

 thing later — provided no one else gets ahead of me 

 — but in this note I merely wish to reply, as far 

 as I can, to the questions which he puts to the 

 judges at the last National Beagle Club trials at 

 Hempstead, of whom I had the pleasure to be one. 

 "He says, 'Now, I should like to ask the judges 

 ... at what point in the scale of field trial virtues 

 in a beagle they drop nose and credit speed?' In 

 reply let me say that the moment a beagle outruns 

 his nose, goes so fast that he cannot carry the trail, 

 that instant speed is dropped and nose credited. 

 There is no point at wliich nose is dropped and 

 speed credited, for a beagle without a nose is no 

 beagle at all, whereas a beagle without speed may 

 be a fairly good hound. A good example of a 

 hound that outran his nose at these trials was 

 Millard. I doubt if there was a faster beagle on 

 the grounds, but he did not or could not use his 



