17 



1859 and continued down to end of 1881. It was compiled by the 

 present Lord Waterford, and started with the thirty- two couple of 

 hounds which Mr. Briscoe selected, including, of course, the Brocklesby 

 lot. This, as I said, consisted of five couple and a half, and it was 

 lucky for Briscoe it came at the time, for it gave him not alone several 

 good working hounds, but brought to the Curraghmore pack the bluest 

 foxhound blood in England. Among the lot was Villager, six years, by 

 Mr. Foljambe's Royster, out of Lord Yarborough's A'^aaity, a wonder- 

 fully bred dog and of about the best strain they ever had at Brocklesby. 



It is to this hound that the Curraghmore in the greatest degree 

 owed their thorough-breeding, not alone when handed back by Mr. 

 Briscoe to the present Marquis in 1870, but even up to the time 

 when that nobleman was stopped hunting in Ireland in 1881. In 

 fact, when his lordship sold the two packs there was hardly a hound 

 in them which did not go back to Villager. 



Briscoe bred a great deal from him, and also from a two year- 

 old hound of this lot called A^igilant, by Lord Yarborough's Pleader, 

 out of his Violet. The descendants of Vigilant did not, however, 

 turn out as well as Briscoe expected, for, after a generation or two, 

 they became noisy. He got a splendid hound out of Mermaid called 

 Mountebank, good looking and capital in his work. Briscoe bred 

 also from Mountebank, but all the strain had eventually to be got 

 rid of. 



Vigilant and Villager were grandly shaped, and fit to show with 

 any stallion hounds in England, and they were remarkably good at 

 work. They were not, however, of a handsome colour, having a lot of 

 black, little white, and no tan except one small patch with which 

 Villager was adorned. Their progeny, however, were usually of the 

 beautiful Belvoir tan. 



After carefully examining the pages of the old Kennel Book as 

 I have just done, I can't help admiring the splendid strains of 

 blood which were continuously brought into that pack by Henry 

 Lord Waterford, Mr. Briscoe, and the present Marquis during their 

 several years of office. Scarcely a single hound whose pedigree does 

 not relate to the following kennels :— Mr. Foljambe's, Lord Yar- 

 borough's, Lord Henry Bentinck's, Duke of Rutland's, Mr. Meynell's, 

 Lord Leconfield's, Lord Portsmouth's, Mr. Lane-Fox's, Lord (xal way's, 

 Mr. Watson's, The Milton, Lord Doneraile's, Duke of Grafton's, and 

 The Oakley. If ever blue foxhound blood was to be found, where 

 could a man look for it if not in the foregoing kennels, while judi- 

 ciously crossing that of the one with the other should, as it did in 

 this instance, produce a pack of foxhounds second to none other in 

 breeding. 



Under those circumstances it is not surprising that with three 

 successive Masters of the calibre and capabilities of our?, the 

 Ourraghmore hounds should have shown a continuance of magnificent 

 «port. 



