228 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



standard is higher than it was at probably half the kennels 

 in the kingdom. There is, in point of fact, an und escribed 

 sitandard of merit, which requires size, strength, quality, and 

 good shoulders, legs, and feet, and which cannot be set out 

 or described by any hard-and-fast rule. The possession of all 

 these qualities — in a greater or lesser degree — combined with 

 bold and upright carriage, makes what is called the Peter- 

 borough hound, and this combination of quality is recognised 

 at a glance by the hound expert, but is probably a sealed book 

 to those who have not a real eye for hounds. No doubt there 

 have been at any time during the last hundred years many 

 individual hounds of the very highest class, and as good in 

 their work as they were to look at, but it is probably also the 

 case, as far as one can judge from foxhound history, that at 

 one time the kennels which contained the really smart packs 

 were few and far between, and that at a majority of the more 

 remotely placed keoinels no great amount of attention was paid 

 to breeding, and that many of the packs, no matter what their 

 working qualities might be, were uneven as a whole, both as 

 regards height and size and in their general appearance. It is 

 also almost certain that a great part of th.e improvement has 

 been brought about by the puppy shows in the various oountriesi, 

 and by the open shows at Peterborough and Reigate. I have 

 sta,t€d how the puppy show has progressed during my 

 experience, how from a small and unimportant func- 

 tion it has, in most countries, become the great 

 summer festival of the hunt; but I was writing of it in con- 

 nection with its being a source of encouragement of hound 

 interest, and now I may add that it has undoubtedly brought 

 about a spirit of emulation among Masters of hounds. Time 

 was when the average country pack was seldom visited in 

 kennel except by the members of its own particular hunt, and 

 when the expert stranger was almost unknown. Before the 

 war, however, a great number of Masters saw many 

 kennels besides their own in the course of the summer, and 

 notably there would be a regular levee at Bel voir on the day 

 before Peterborough, and another at Milton on the same day, 

 which was frequently the puppy show day as well. Then 

 Masters tour about the country, judging each other's puppies, 

 while in the actual season they see far more of other packs in 

 the field than their fathers and grandfathers did. 



