228 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



and, in a \rord, all the peculiarities of the Southern hounds 

 and Talbots were comparative — it is easy to conceive, that, 

 when in process of time the clearing up of the forests and 

 other causes rendered a swifter hound desirable, those ani- 

 mals should be chosen from which to raise stock, possess- 

 ing the points of speed, lightness, and activity, rather 

 than those of strength, endurance, and even of pre-eminent 

 scent. There were undoubtedly also white Talbots and 

 even white bloodhounds, though these were rare, and it is 

 possible that the prevalence of that color in the fleet 

 modern hounds, may arise from a casual coincidence of 

 color and fleetness in some pure ancestral strain. 



I confess, however, that I think it probable that there 

 is a distant cross somewhere — perhaps through the North- 

 ern hound, which Stonehenge states, as if with authority, 

 to have been decidedly a cross of the Southern hound 

 with the Scottish deerhound — of some slighter and faster 

 strain, which may have imparted color as well as speed. 



The harrier^although it also has of late years under- 

 gone much the same process of improvement, so that it 

 has become in many instances little more than a dwarf 

 foxhound, increase of speed having been sought at the 

 expense of strength, to the overmatching of the hare and 

 the deterioration of the sport — still retains more of the 

 Southern hound, and shows the blood, both by its colors, 

 the black and yellow pie and the blue mottle, and by its 

 deep melodious challenge. 



The beagle, the smallest of the species, now used in Eng- 

 land only to hunt rabbits, is a charming and beautiful little 

 animal, being in fact a mere pocket edition of the South- 



