THE RACE OF BELVOIR 



work, yet they need never put on a puppy which has not 

 the black and tan on purest white, which is the uniform 

 colouring of the pack. I have hunted with many other 

 packs and have noted how common this colour is be- 

 coming, showing that, the Belvoir being now a pure and 

 established family, their blood is prepotent to impose its 

 own character in crosses with other strains. But this family 

 likeness which is peculiar to the Belvoir, and which can be 

 seen in the same degree in no other kennel, is, I am convinced, 

 the result of grafting on an original stock which had been 

 established long enough to crystallise its traits into hereditary 

 characteristics. 



I do not lay much stress on what was done before the time 

 of Newman and Mr. Perceval, when the female line of Rally- 

 wood and the various sub-families of his clan were started 

 by the entrance into the kennel of Beaufort Champion and 

 Topper. Then there was the period when large infusions of 

 Meynell blood came through Mr. Osbaldeston's and Lord 

 Monson's packs, and finally when the fifth Duke purchased 

 Mr. George Heron's pack from Cheshire, in which Meynell 

 blood was paramount. Mr. Meynell's hounds are supposed 

 to have been of great antiquity, as he got them from Mr. 

 Boothby, and Mr. Boothby's kennel traces back to the old 

 sort of Lord Arundell, of Wardour. But in all these specula- 

 tions we tread on very uncertain ground. What is certain is 

 that the Belvoir kennel owes much to four great lines of 

 blood — the Beaufort Champion, Osbaldeston's Furrier (a Bel- 

 voir hound by birth), Sefton's Sultan, Mr. Drake's Duster, and 

 Brocklesby Rallywood. When the Belvoir desired an out 

 cross, they generally went to the Fitzwilliam and the Bad- 

 minton kennels, the different types of these packs at that 

 time showing that they had but little Belvoir blood. Through 

 Mr. Osbaldeston's kennel the Belvoir got back their own 

 blood, mingled, among others, with the beautiful mute hounds 

 of Sir Thomas Mostyn, which, through Lady, transmitted 

 both their qualities and their silence. Thus we see the tap- 

 root of the Belvoir was their own original stock, while the 

 grafts are Meynell (an ancient and pure race), Beaufort (of 



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