210 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



Some articles appeared in the Field in the spring of 1872, by 

 Count Conteux de Canteleu, on French hounds, and one on the 

 smooth hounds of Vendee convinced me that here we must look 

 for the origin of the old stag-hound. In a conversation I had 

 with Mr. John Darby, of Rugby, who remembered the stag- 

 hounds in Epping Forest, as well as Mr. Shards, when he had 

 them at Little Somborne House in Hampshire, he described them 

 as beautiful hounds, full of symmetry and power, but not like 

 fox-hounds, and as being what he termed " pointer-fleshed dogs, 

 and having what in the horse we should call a stallion look 

 about them." To make sure that there should be no mistake, 

 I got a drawing very carefully made from the portrait of 

 Mirliton, a smooth Vendee hound, the property of Viscount 

 A. D'Ousemburg, which appeared in the Field of January 27th, 

 1872, and showed it to Mr. Darby without telling him what it 

 was, or how I had got it, when he immediately exclaimed," Where 

 did you get that 1 That is one of the old stag-hounds we were 

 talking about. Take it and show it to old Bob Eounding at Wood- 

 ford Wells, who hunted them, and see if he does not say so." 

 That I did, and Mr. Rounding also recognized it as being like the 

 hounds he used to hunt. The white Vendee hounds were 

 originally the white St. Hubert's, and in the French hounds of 

 the nineteenth century we find that one called Sorrillard was 

 put to a pointer bitch from Italy. " From this union resulted 

 a white puppy with a fawn-coloured patch on his shoulder. 

 He was named Grefier, after the owner of his dam, and 

 became such an excellent hound that few stags escaped him. 

 The thirteen whelps of which he was successively the sire, and 

 which proved as fine and excellent as himself, formed the illus- 

 trious breed of Greffier's, which was well confirmed in all its 

 characters by the time of Francis the First's accession to the 

 Throne." 



I can easily understand how an infusion of pointer blood 

 would, as it were, stir up the slow, pottering St. Hubert, give 

 him more dash, and detracting, perhaps, little or nothing from 



