272 Forty Years Beagling 



how often? And it can be safely said that the ma- 

 jority of handlers dread going down against them 

 as they feel that they are handicapped at the start. 

 Yet I have competed against some of the excep- 

 tions and seen one or two others in competition, 

 who were magnificent individual field-trial hounds. 

 Is this assumption a possible error, due to the fact 

 that the pack men do not take the trouble to insist 

 upon their English kennelmen training for individ- 

 uality; or is it because, if it just happens that an 

 individual hound shows individual qualities they 

 are started in the brace stakes? 



The pack men for many years attended only the 

 New England trials and the National trials. Very 

 few attended the former. Whatever the fact, many 

 English hounds who have never put foot down at 

 a field trial are being extensively and regularly 

 used to-day as stud hounds, so that the interesting 

 question remains, are breeders working along cor- 

 rect lines? There is no doubt that a debt of grati- 

 tude is due the pack men for their importations 

 from time to time of beagles from England, the 

 earmarks of many of which are still seen in our best 

 field trial hounds of to-day; but the question re- 

 mains whether these English hounds should be 

 regularly used at stud or only as an outcross. 



Again take the bench show type. What chance 



