THE BEL VOIR COUNTRY 



Whether the Belvoir country carried a better scent in old 

 days than it does now would be difficult to say. It appears, 

 after looking over the records of sport, that the run of foxes 

 changes very little, not only from year to year, but even from 

 generation to generation. If wire could be removed, if 

 peace could be patched up between foxes and pheasants, if 

 mange could be stamped out — then fox-hunting might be 

 again what it has been in the past. If these things cannot 

 come to pass, even in Leicestershire, where the benefits of 

 hunting are so obvious, where can it be possible? Some 

 who are now living may yet see hunting exiled to Ireland 

 and the English fox-hound reduced, like his relative the 

 pointer, to a show-bench existence, and given prizes for the 

 length of his ear, the carriage of his tail, or the exact pro- 

 portions of black and tan on his back ; to sit evermore on 

 a narrow bench at a show, with a pink card suspended over 

 his head, which records the glory of his misguided owner 

 in the shame of his dog. 



But let us hope this vision of the future may never become 

 an actual experience, and that the English fox-hound may 

 still have a future before it worthy of its past. 



The present kennels were built in 1809. Before that date, 

 from the time of the third Duke, hounds were kennelled at 

 Croxton Park, which, as will be remembered, was a hunting- 

 box built by him. The fifth Duke pulled down the house 

 at Croxton Park, after Mr. Perceval, who had tenanted it 

 during his mastership, had moved to Sproxton ; but the 

 hounds remained in those kennels when they were not at 

 Wilsford, a village convenient for the coverts east of Gran- 

 tham. After the kennels were built at Belvoir, in 1 809, there 

 were also kennels at Ropsley, of which mention has already 

 been made. The Belvoir kennels were very healthy, and 

 since their erection hounds have suffered little from such 

 scourges as kennel lameness, though the pack was ravaged 

 by a disease resembling influenza in 1821. 



No hounds have sounder constitutions than the Belvoir, 

 and though something is due to a long continuance of first- 

 rate kennel management, so that it is an old Belvoir joke 



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