moment. There is no dwelling to rejoice over the 

 scent, and though they are not able to race, we shall 

 have to look to it that we do not lose them. The 

 eager puppies and two impetuous leaders are off 

 the line now and again, but the hounds in the middle 

 never lose the scent and recall the others by a timely 

 note. But in the small square covert of thorns the 

 fox, being young and inexperienced, has waited, 

 and that pause has sealed his fate, for this time 

 hounds and fox come out almost together, and it is 

 a race for life for the fox and a steeplechase for the 

 followers for the next two miles till the hounds 

 fairly run into him in the open. A Belvoir burst 

 of twenty minutes of the best! So the day, with 

 perhaps another burst, or it may be a long steady 

 hunt, goes on. If you stay to the end, when the 

 hounds turn away for the kennels at the end of the 

 day, you will see that they will trot off as gaily as 

 they started in the morning. The Master, the ser- 

 vants, and the much diminished field will have tired 

 out two horses apiece, but courage and condition will 

 apparently leave the hounds as willing and able to 

 hunt when the shadows of the short November twi- 

 light put a stop to the sport, as when they left their 

 kennels in the morning. 



Now, this pack that you have watched and fol- 

 lowed with so much interest and pleasure, is the 

 result of at least a hundred years of selection, judg- 

 ment and thought. There are fifty or sixty couples 

 in kennels and as many puppies are sent out to walk, 

 of whom not a third will be found worthy of a trial 

 in the pack, and fewer still of a permanent place 

 on the hound list. The first definite knowledge we 

 have of the Belvoir hounds is in 1727, in the days 

 of the third Duke of Rutland. His son, the famous 

 Marquis of Granby, spent some of the time he could 

 spare from "the wars" in hunting, and we know that 

 he improved the pack. The fourth Duke married a 



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