26 THE SOUTH DEVON HUNT 



hard riding on the part of Templer and his two 

 friends Taylor and Russell, and also of certain 

 members of the field who had become proficient in 

 this unusual accomplishment. So successful were 

 they, and such was the discipline of the pack, that 

 it rarely happened that the fox was not saved un- 

 harmed and untouched by the hounds. One dark- 

 coloured fox, christened the Bold Dragoon, was 

 turned out thirty-six times before the season of 

 1824r-5 and was then still on the active list. He 

 nearly always gave a good run, and on his return 

 home at night never went into his kennel "s\nthout 

 taking with him his supper consisting of half a 

 rabbit and some kennel-meat without flesh, or, 

 failing the rabbit, a small portion of flesh. 



To hunt these bag-foxes Templer kept a separate 

 pack, nicknamed the " Let-'em-alones," consisting 

 of dwarf foxhounds^ averaging nineteen inches at the 

 shoulder. Xot^vithstanding the system in vogue, 

 these hounds are stated- to have been capital hunters, 

 very quick, and a very hard driving lot. What is 

 remarkable, too, is that they could kill foxes when 

 suffered to do so ; and once while at North Molton 

 during the Chumleigh week they killed three brace 

 of foxes — wild moorland foxes — in four days. 



These hounds were professedly foxhounds, inas- 

 much as they hunted nothing but fox ; yet they 



^ I am aweire that this pack has sometimes been described as " beagles " 

 or *' well-bred little beagles/' Mr. Da\ies, however (Lije of Russell) de- 

 scribes them as nineteen-inch f cxhoimds, and as he was a friend of Templer's, 

 and was intimate with Russell and Taylor and others of their period, there 

 is httle doubt he is right. See also his mention at page 30 of their dis- 

 persal ; the account in Appendix A of a run in 1823 ; the letter at page 27 

 from Jack Russell ; and the reference on that page to Nimrod's Hunting 

 Tour$. 



» Lt/e o/ th€ Bev. J. Rusedl. Ximrod's Hunting Tours. Both these 

 works contain a full description of the system. 



