ScarleL 321 



in any weather in the meets near home, were also 

 among the Birdsall particulars. Carter hankered 

 after the Fitzwilliam Shiner for years, but he got him 

 nothing good when he did succeed in begging him of 

 Tom Sebright. The cross did not suit, although he 

 had the very flowers of the pack for one or two sea- 

 sons, and they were rather inclined to be noisy. Vice- 

 roy went to the Duke of Buccleuch's ; and his son 

 Highflyer, from the Duke's Harriett, has been used to 

 some purpose in Earl Wemyss's kennel. Sir Tatton 

 was always very particular about legs and feet, and 

 his hounds were generally big, with especially great 

 ribs, deep in the brisket, and, as Mr. Conyers and 

 Mr. Marriott used to think, somewhat flat-sided ; 

 although oddly enough, it was quite a phrase of Tom 

 Carter's, ** Let me see their sides in a line with their 

 thighs." 



Mr. Conyers, who took the Lonsdale j^^. q^^^^^^ 

 and Sykes drafts for years, considered 

 the flat sides their great excellence, as they never 

 tired with Jim Morgan in his heavy road work, 

 sometimes twenty-four miles to cover. At times Jem 

 has ridden his hack thirty-three miles from his house 

 to Little Burnfield, had a second breakfast there, and 

 then taken his hounds ten miles to draw. " We II 

 stick to the flat U7zs, Jim^ i7i Essex, whatever they say I' 

 was his constant remark ; " tJieyll bear far more 

 fatigue t/ian those sqitare heavy hounds^ Size was 

 also a great point with Mr. Conyers, and in 1847 he 

 had twenty-five couple of twenty-five-inch hounds ; 

 and led by Barmaid, who was nearly as big as any of 

 them, they fairly swept like a hurricane, from scent to 

 view, into their fox over the Roothings. In the wet 

 weather, the bitches were invariably beaten hy the 

 dog-hounds. The former had not the necessary stride 

 for the ditches, of which the sides were hollow ; and 

 they jumped, as Jim says, "with their hind legs short, 

 another on top of them, and so the ditches were full." 



Y 



