72 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



or Merkin was tried, I have no doubt ; but there, at any rate, 

 Avas the stuff to work upon — a hound of distinct breed and 

 strongly-marked characteristics such as would be found in no 

 cross-bred animal, which characteristics have been handed 

 down with little or no change to the present day. There may be 

 some truth in the assertion of an old writer on hounds, that " a 

 couple of southern hounds removed to the north, and suffered 

 to propagate without art or mixture, in a mountainous country 

 where the air is light, and they will by sensible degrees dege- 

 nerate, and their bodies will become lighter and their voices 

 more shrill ; " but, unfortunately for the theory of our northern 

 hound being produced in this way, the heavy hound was found 

 in its greatest purity also in the northern county of Lancashire, 

 and in a mountainous district. So that I must set down the 

 fox-hound as a distinct breed from those distant ages which are 

 beyond the reach of history, for want of evidence to the 

 contrary. 



At the present time the fox-hound is in greater repute than 

 any known dog in existence, and is used in every kind 

 of chase to the almost total exclusion of all other breeds ; and 

 we find him used for the chase of the stag, buck, hare (dwarf 

 fox-hounds), and even otter as well as the fox, while, like every- 

 thing else, he has wonderfully increased in value of late years. 

 What price such packs as the Belvoir, Brocklesby, Milton, Ber- 

 keley, Quorn, Duke of Beaufort's, Lord Portsmouth's, and other 

 cracks, would now make, if they came into the market, it is 

 impossible to conjecture. Two thousand has been by no means 

 an unusual figure for a pack of good reputation ; and I know 

 that a year or two ago a noble earl offered four thousand for a 

 celebrated kennel of hounds in the south of England, which 

 large sum was refused because he wished to remove them from 

 the country in which they were bred — the owner preferring to 

 take half that amount in order that they may continue to hunt 

 their old country. It must, however, be remembered that this 

 was a very celebrated pack indeed, and one to which nearly all 



