122 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



off, and the Colonel sold Merkin for four hogsheads of after- 

 dinner claret. He appears to have liked bringing wine into 

 a deal, and he sold Dash, a celebrated pointer — painted, 

 I think, by Stubbs — to Sir E. Symons for 160Z.,tobe taken 

 out in champagne or burgundy, a hogshead of claret, an 

 ' elegant ' gun , and another pointer. Dash was half a fox- 

 hound, and a celebrated French Vendee hound called 

 Greffier was half a pointer. 



It would be worse than the evolution of the northern 

 and the southern hound if I delved into the action and 

 reaction of foxhound and pointer blood, but I remem- 

 ber well that, as a boy, I used to go and shoot at a very 

 good grouse moor called Strathavon, near Tomintoul, with 

 Colonel Legendre Starkie, who had a great kennel of pointers 

 and Gordon setters. I remember the particular style and 

 excellence of a black and white pointer ; he used to stand 

 to birds with his stern straight up in the air. This was 

 not quite right, but Colonel Starkie liked him especially 

 from his striking likeness in appearance and ways to a 

 foxhound. On this subject he writes to me : ' Shot, like 

 many of my pointers, had three crosses of foxhound in him 

 from three different kennels, Osbaldistone, Sir Harry Good- 

 rich and Captain J. White. All these men had a famous 

 breed of pointers, and each one of them had used the fox- 

 hound cross. This gave to their progeny endurance, and 

 good legs and feet and pace.' 



Mr. Mellish's hounds were lemon pyes,' and hunted wild 

 fallow deer in Epping Forest up till 1805. As far as I can make 

 out, they were the foundation of the old Devon and Somerset 

 staghounds. In 1825 the Devon and Somerset were sold 

 by Mr. Lucas to Mr. Shard to hunt carted deer in Hamp- 

 shire. ' Nimrod ' paid Mr. Shard a visit at Little Somborne 



' Mr. Darby described the old Epping Forest staghounds as ' pointer fleshed, 

 with a stalUony look about them.' 



