THE QUORN HOUNDS 27 



THE QUORN HOUNDS 



IN attempting to sketch an outline history of the 

 Ouorn, the foxhound problem confronts one directly. 

 It is, for instance, quite impossible to discover the 

 source whence Mr. Boothby obtained his original pack 

 of hounds, which he must have started about the year 

 1697. At that time there were very few regular fox- 

 hunting establishments, and it could not then have been 

 an easy matter to make up a scratch pack with drafts 

 from various kennels. This is not the place in which 

 to indulge in theories concerninor the evolution of the 

 foxhound, which I take leave to regard as just such 

 another composite animal as is the blood horse. 



As these pages will show, the Ouorn Hunt has a 

 history of something like two hundred years ; but, 

 except in an indirect sense, the present occupants of 

 the kennel have no such long lineage, because, since the 

 youthful Mr. Boothby first began to hunt the country, 

 packs have been dispersed time after time, and it is 

 only through chance strains, if any such exist, that the 

 present Ouorn hounds can have any relationship with 

 Mr. Meynell's famous pack. 



The pack of which Mr. Boothby was possessed was 

 taken over, so far as one can discover, by Mr. Meynell 

 in 1753, and that great master of hunting, by judicious 

 breeding, no doubt improved them very much ; and they 

 in turn were sold to Lord Sefton, who added to them 

 his hounds with which, from Combe Abbey, he had 

 been hunting a part of Oxfordshire. It is reasonable 



