THE STAGHOUND 117 



form.' With the requireinciits of modern hunting the whole 

 conception of the staghound has changed. No two animals 

 in the matter of points can be more different than the stag- 

 hound featured and characterised in these graphic extracts, 

 and the ideal a Master of the Buckhounds sets before him to- 

 day. As to the points of these ' vieille roche ' aristocrats, it will 

 be seen — again I quote — that they were not arrived at with- 

 out care and meditation. The cross is as complicated as a 

 Chinese puzzle, and is worthy of a pigeon-fancier. 'They^ 

 were a cross of the Irish wolfhound, the Irish bloodhound, 

 and the Spanish dark red bloodhound ; and they were after- 

 wards crossed upon the large English bull-dog, and partook 

 of that animal's appearance in their silky {sic) coats and 

 large and deep-set underjaws.' 



Colonel Thornton bought the best of the Koyal hounds 

 and removed to France in 1814. T imagine they were not 

 anything to boast of. George's III.'s illness must have taken 

 a great deal of the heart and spirit out of the hunting. Sliarpe 

 was an old man. In-and-in breeding, and the habit of con- 

 stantly stopping hounds for a quarter of an hour or twenty 

 minutes to let the king, who would go no faster than he 

 liked, get up, and yet having very long days and dragging 

 over miles of country, had demoralised the pack, both in 

 the kennel and in their work. By this time, according to 

 a correspondent of the ' Sporting Magazine ' (March 1814), 

 men, horses, and hounds had ' dwindled by rapid degrees 

 from splendour to decency, from decency to poverty, from 

 poverty to inability. Those,' he adds, ' which don't eat are 

 going mad, and those which are not going mad can only 

 eat.' 



The Colonel, I suppose, had formed his estimate of French 

 taste in hounds during his hunting tour in France, and he 

 no doubt knew where to place them. The King's hounds 

 were not his sort if the pictures and the record which 



