Chapter I 

 THE HOUSE OF MANNERS AND THE CHASE 



TO write the history of the Bel voir Hunt is to tell the 

 story of the rise of fox-hunting. Not because that 

 hunt is the oldest in England, for others are senior in point 

 of age, nor because it was the first to rise to fame by the 

 goodness of the hounds it could put into the field, for at the 

 time when Lord Granby, soon after the middle of the last 

 century, began to seek relaxation from his cares as com- 

 mander-in-chief in the interest of hound - breeding, Mr. 

 Meynell, Lord Monson, the Duke of Beaufort, and Mr. 

 Noel, of the Cottesmore, and others, already had packs noted 

 for their excellence. The reason is to be found in the fact 

 that from the year 1760 the best blood in England has been 

 grafted on the original Belvoir stock ; until now the Belvoir 

 hound is not merely the best foxhound in the land of fox- 

 hunting, but is the finest achievement of man's power of 

 selection in the breeding of domesticated animals. For the 

 foxhound as he stands in his perfection to-day is a greater 

 triumph of the skill of the breeder even than the racehorse, 

 as in a much smaller frame he combines a speed almost as 

 great, and a power of endurance more lasting, with an intelli- 

 gence infinitely more serviceable. No animal, indeed, used 

 by man is so well adapted for its work as the foxhound, in 

 its combination of strength, beauty, and intelligence, but 

 while we sing its praises we remember that in this, the highest 

 result of our experience and our skill, we have been beaten 

 on almost every point by natural selection. In the quarry of 

 the foxhound, the fox itself, we find a speed and a power of 



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