THE HOUND. 229 
ern hound, which it exactly resembles in almost every 
particular, unless it be the crooklegs, the dewlap, and the 
pendulous jaws. 
It has the color, the soft lustrous eye, the long soft 
drooping ears, ‘‘ that sweep away the morning dew,” and 
the cry, though small as compared with that of the great 
hound, yet tunable, sonorous, deep, and matched like bells. 
There is no prettier sport in the world, on a small 
scale, than to hunt rabbits where they are abundant, with 
these industrious, active and indefatigable little dogs, and 
few more interesting sights than a pack of the merry little 
pigmies in full cry, running literally so that a table-cloth 
may cover them, and following the devious mazes of their 
timorous quarry with undeviating instinct through fern, 
bush, brake and coppice. 
Of the improved English foxhound I have never seen 
any in America, the animals here used partaking largely 
of the Talbot blood, color and note, and having his 
qualities of excellent nose, great endurance, indefatigable 
industry, and the habit of sticking to their scent, day in 
and day out, until the fox is worn out rather than run 
down. 
The American foxhound as used in pursuit of the fox 
in Maryland, Virginia, and other Southern States, and of 
the deer in the Carolinas, Georgia, and wherever deer-hunt- 
ing on horseback or by driving is practised, is in fact actually 
the hound, unaltered and identical, of Beckford and Som- 
erville. I am of opinion, moreover, that he is the best 
adapted hound for this country, where so much of the 
hunting is in difficult, intricate, entangled woodlands, 
