64 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



as to pluck, dash, and endurance, himself alone can he his fellow. 

 Have you an eye for colour? Look at the gay tints of his coat, so 

 hright and diversified, yet so harmonious. How is the black 

 shaded into tan, and the tan to white ! How the dark or smutty 

 tinge round eyes or muzzle gives a determined resolute appear- 

 ance to the countenance ! Look him well over, drink in all his 

 points and beauties, and then answer the question, Where did he 

 come from ? 



Many ways of solving this question have been devised, none 

 of them in my estimation satisfactory. As nearly all start on 

 the hypothesis that the fox-hound is descended from the blood- 

 hound or talbot, and has been brought to his present state of 

 improved speed and energy by means of some cross — seeing 

 how totally different in every characteristic, save that they both 

 pursue their prey by scent, are the bloodhound and fox-hound — 

 it is certainly difficult to imagine how those who have en- 

 deavoured to enlighten the world on this subject could have 

 got this idea into their head, more especially as we know that, 

 even as far back as the time of Xenophon, there were several 

 different kinds of hounds in use. However, the idea once started, 

 one and all of our writers have steadily followed each other like 

 sheep in it, and only differed as to the kind of cross by which 

 the change from bloodhound to fox-hound was brought about. 

 The stumbling-block in their way appears to me to have been the 

 impression that the fox-hound was a fresh creation at the time 

 fox-hunting first came in fashion. Had this been so, and had he 

 resulted from a cross of any kind, we should have had the 

 wonderful phenomena of one of the most perfect animals as 

 regards combined speed, strength, endurance, and grace, brought 

 to perfection in a very short number of years — at any rate under 

 a hundred. I say brought to perfection because I believe the 

 fox-hound to have been as good and as speedy during the last 

 three decades of the eighteenth century as he is at present. 

 And it is a well-known fact that the earliest pack of hounds, 

 kept solely for hunting the fox, was at "VVardour Castle, between 



