THE BLACKMORE VALE HOUNDS. 225 



Blackmore Vale Euby (1864). Of this litter 

 Romulus was the second-prize puppy of his year, 

 and he, with Koman, E-odmore, and Rover his 

 brothers, was sent to the Peterborough Show. 



A mark that soon became a distinguishing one 

 of the Blackmore Vale pack under Mr Guest's 

 rule was that the hounds had their ears unrounded. 

 In spite of the verdict of fashion at that time to 

 the contrary, Mr Guest was a staunch advocate of 

 the non- rounding of hounds' ears, and in the 

 management of his large pack the Master had the 

 courage of his opinions. The grey hunt horses on 

 which Master and men were mounted was an- 

 other disting-uishinof and attractive feature of the 

 hunt. Mr Guest always discouraged the practice 

 of holloaing. His own men he never allowed to 

 holloa, as he said that "you can always get 

 hounds' heads up, but you cannot depend on 

 getting them down again on the spot you want." 

 The Master never kept a mute hound, and I well 

 remember his reg-ret when a beautiful hound named 

 Lexicon, that came to him in a draft in 1886, ran 

 mute from Hoi well Gorse, for he never took him 

 out again. 



In 1885, when Mr T. Harvey Bayly was Master 

 of the Bufford, one of the outcrosses introduced by 

 Mr Guest was Bufford Denmark, this hound siring 

 no less than six couples of the entry of the following 

 year. Among these was Druid (1886), whose dam 

 was Woodbine (1882), a daughter of Mr Garth's 

 Wildfire, and through her dam going back to 



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