THE CONDITIONS OF HUNTING. 227 



bred, by Bass Rock, who was seventeen hands high, and so 

 high on the leg that a small pony could almost run under 

 him. In the case of hounds, I think it may be taken as proved 

 that really well-made ones will go anywhere, but that hounds 

 with indifferent shoulders will fall to pieces when tired, no 

 matter what country they are hunting in. And I must make 

 it plain that I can only write of what may be termed orthodox 

 foxhounds. Of the hill packs which hunt the mountain 

 countries of Cumberland and Westmorland and of the purely 

 "Welsh hounds I shall write later, but I have seen, high- 

 class working hounds which were descended from a Welsh 

 strain, and I have one bitch named Handmaid in mind that 

 always ran at head, and yet who on the flags would have been 

 almost a disgrace to any good kennel. She was long and low, 

 with something approaching a hare foot, and quite wanting 

 in the upright carriage which one looks for in a high-class fox- 

 hound. Yet she was a perfect demon on a fox, was always 

 in front when hounds were running, and late in life was the 

 mother of good stock. How eixactly this bitch was bred I do 

 not know, but she was at the North Durham kennels through 

 out the 'eighties, and in 1891 she bred a hound named Galopin 

 to the Cleveland Galopin. This much the Foxhound Stud 

 Book reveals, but the volume is dumb as to Handmaid's breed- 

 ing. 



One statement as to the difference between the modern fox- 

 hound and the hound of from thirty to forty years ago can 

 be made with full conviction, and that is that the present-day 

 foxhound is better looking than his predecessor. The opinion 

 is, as a matter of course, derived from an all-round point of 

 view, and does not concern the individual hounds of any 

 particular period. In other words, the average pack — and 

 more particularly the provincial pack — now makes a much 

 better appearance on the flags than it did, say, from a quarter 

 to half a century ago. I do not say that the best-looking 

 hounds which come to Peterborough are actually the hand- 

 somest in the kingdom, for many good packs never send 

 hounds to the shows. Nor do I say that there is improvement 

 from year to year in the hounds which are shown, or that the 

 champions of each year are better looking than the champions 

 of a year before; but what I maintain is that the all-round 



Q 2 



