224 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



presume no one would for a moment doubt ; but in early days, 

 or, in fact, nearly up to the present time, he appears to have 

 been mixed up in almost inextricable confusion with other 

 hounds of somewhat, but not exactly, similar character ; and, in 

 fact, any hound with a good deal of black and tan about him, a 

 deep voice and long ears, was dubbed a bloodhound — a Talbot, 

 a sleuthhound, a St, Hubert, or a Southern hound — according 

 to the fancy of the person who was describing him, or the whim 

 of his owner. And from him all our hounds are — very erro- 

 neously, in my opinion — supposed to have been obtained by 

 crossing. That the Talbot, tlie St. Hubert, sleuthhound, and 

 bloodhound, are one and the same breed, I have no doubt ; but 

 I think there is evidence to show that in England, at any rate, 

 there was another breed of hounds hunting by scent, as early as 

 the days of the ancient Britons, of somewhat similar character 

 but still a distinct breed; and this, of which further on I hope 

 to give some account, was what is called the Manchester hound 

 in some parts, and in others the old Southern hound. My own 

 opinion is that bloodhounds came into England with the Not- 

 mans ; that they were never very numerous, being kept more as 

 lyme hounds than for hunting in packs, and for the purpose of 

 running down outlaws and fugitives of all kinds, for which 

 work they are peculiarly fitted. 



In the " History of the French Breeds of Hounds of the 

 Nineteenth Century," publisheil in the Fields in 1872, by 

 Count Le Conteux de Canteleu, M.H. — a work which, in my 

 opinion, throws a great deal of light on the heretofore obscure 

 subject of the origin of our hounds — the St. Hubert hound is 

 described at some length ; and by the plate given in the number 

 for the 13th of January, any one at all conversant with dogs 

 would at once recogni^ie the St. Hubert as the same dog as the 

 bloodhound. The author says, "The St. Hubert hound, and 

 that of the Bmsse country, appear to date from the earliest 

 ages, and certainly existed in the time of the Gauls." Again : 

 *' The St. Hubert hounds, already celebrated in the eighth cen- 



