THE STAG HOUND 131 



and I come to the stag-hunter of the present day. I will 

 narrow him down to the hounds which have come within 

 my own experience — the Queen's. Give me, to hunt the 

 Swinlej^ deer over the wide and varied district known as 

 the Queen's country, a foxhound of the highest mettle 

 and courage to be got. It is only with the foxhound that 

 true joys are to be found. But here I may fairly be 

 asked to state my general proposition more precisely. In 

 foxhounds, granted the same spirit, there is as everybody 

 knows a diversity of gifts. If, then, such a question be 

 put — and for the sake of answering it, let me assume that 

 it is put — I should say, after the experience of three seasons' 

 stag-hunting, that both for appearance and style I would 

 breed and draft a pack of staghounds to the standard of 

 two particular packs — the Blankney bitches at the time 

 Lord Lonsdale hunted them from Brigstock, the largest 

 of the Hursley bitches during Colonel Nicholls's Mastership, 

 say in the early seventies ; or, if we are to come nearer 

 to the present day, to the model and fashion of a lemon 

 pye strain which go straight back to Blankney blood, of 

 which there are now a few individuals in Mr. Butt-Miller's 

 kennels at Cricklade. Very likely it might be objected by 

 some that the Hursley bitches would, at the time I am 

 speaking of, have been on the small side for the heath 

 and the Queen's forest country, but I do not believe a 

 word of it. For one thing, except in some of the lower 

 sweeps of the Chobham ridges, there is very little of 

 the high sinewy heather which the Devon and Somerset 

 have to contend with ; but, even if there were, they would 

 have streaked through it on a scent as if it were paper. 

 Besides, the Berkshire side of the Queen's country in 

 Davis's best time, say in the forties, was a much more 

 stubborn country than it is at present. There was more 

 heath, less reclamation, great fuel fences as close and 



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