HUNTING DIRECTORY. 215 



Number of the Pack. 



riers. Excuse me, brother hare-hunters ! I mean not 

 to offend ; I speak only of the country where I live. 

 The hare-hunthig there is so bad, that, did you know 

 it, your wonder would be how I could have persevered 

 in it so long, not that I should forsake it now. I respect 

 hunting, in whatever shape it appears : it is a manly and 

 a wholesome exercise, and seems by nature designed to 

 be the amusement of a Briton. 



" You ask, how many hounds a pack of harriers should 

 consist of? and what kind of hound is best suited to that 

 diversion ? You should never, I think, exceed twenty 

 couple in the field ; it might be difficult to get a greater 

 number to run well together, and a pack of harriers 

 cannot be complete if they do not : besides, the fewer 

 hounds you have, the less you foil the ground, which 

 you otherwise would find a great hindrance to your 

 hunting. Your other question is not easily answered : 

 the hounds, I think, most likely to show you sport, are 

 between the large slow-hunting harrier and the littleyb.f 

 beagle :* one is too dull, too heavy, and too slow : the 



• Fox Beagle. — In this place, Beckford does not appear sufficiently 

 explicit. Hounds may be divided into three classes, viz. the Talbot, the 

 Southern Hound, and the Beagle. Fox hounds have a portion of the 

 blood of the first or second, or both ; but the beagle, 1 am inclined to 

 tliink, would seldom, if ever, be resorted to for the same purpose. The 

 beagle is the smallest of the hound tribe, with short legs and of an elon- 

 gated form, and calculated for the pursuit of the hare. 7he genuine 

 Beagle may be regarded as the dwarf Talbot : like the latter, he has a very 

 capacious head and large pendant ears, and, like the latter also, he is re- 

 markable for tenderness of nose, and deep, sonorous music : the genuine 

 Beagle has, it is true, undergone some alterations in his form : he lias been 

 rendered lighter and more fleet, his head has been compressed, and his nose 



