330 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



and endurance than galloping, and developed by climate and 

 selection into a horse instead of a pony. Another strong dash 

 of Eastern blood reduced the size, but gave us those little won- 

 ders that, like their desert ancestors, could gallop all day and 

 lialf the next, which Admiral Rous dubbed butchers' hacks ; yet 

 Ijy the time of Eclipse the native blood and climate had re- 

 asserted itself, and we find horses sixteen hands and upwards, 

 but we have endeavoured of late years to breed for speed alone, 

 and, if we got that, disregarded all else. However, I am off the 

 line and must get back ; that there were brave men before Aga- 

 memnon, and good horses in England long ere the importation 

 of the Royal mares, I am convinced from old records ; and 

 through the simple fact of our ancestors having hunted the drag, 

 and raced with these same animals, by analogy, or as we should 

 put it in turf phraseology, " a collateral trail," I arrive at the 

 conclusion that hounds which can race into a good fox in five 

 and twenty minutes, given a suitable country, are by no means a 

 modern invention, but were an institution in England two or three 

 centuries ago. Now my task is done, and I lay down my pen, 

 hoping that the reader who has followed me thus far may have 

 derived some amusement and a new idea or two regarding hounds 

 and hunting. That my work is perfect I do not expect, but I 

 hope at least to have thrown light on some obscure points, and to 

 have avoided the errors of some who have in recent times been 

 accepted as shining lights on the subject of the chase. 



If I have induced one man to take more interest in the work 

 of hounds, to notice the different tactics of the various kinds of 

 game hunted, and think for himself what kind of hound is best 

 calculated to give them full play and finally hunt the quarry 

 down and defeat it, I am sure I shall have opened up to him a 

 new source of pleasure, and shall not have ^vritten in vain. If, 

 on the other hand, a few enthusiasts in the chase shall only find 

 half as much pleasure in reading as I have in writing, what has 

 been to me really a labour of love, I shall be amply repaid. 



