296 Next to the Ground 



see, but there are regions where red ones have 

 driven out the grays. The tv^o sorts v^ill 

 not live in good fellowship and close neighbor- 

 hood. All through the grass country, fox- 

 hunting is a favorite sport. There are few 

 regular packs, but almost every place of conse- 

 quence has a couple or two of hounds — 

 sometimes half a dozen couple. Couple, it 

 may be said, used in connection with dogs and 

 hunting, never takes a plural. The phrase 

 hunting in couples, is wrong — it should be 

 hunting in couple. It derives, of course, 

 from venery when stag and boar hounds were 

 hunted in couple — that is in pairs with a 

 short leash between the two collars — partly 

 by way of keeping up their courage and their 

 cry, partly also to show how excellently equal 

 the kennel keepers had turned them out. It 

 takes mighty well-broke dogs to run thus, one 

 with another, each not only afire to follow 

 and blood the quarry, but to do it ahead of 

 the fellow at the other end of the string. 



Afield, Tennessee hounds are coupled only 

 in name. Until twenty years back they were 

 almost exclusively of the stout black-and-tan 

 breed, or the stouter blue-mottled Virginia 

 hunting strain. Latterly there is a sharp 

 sprinkle of white-coated hounds, with black 

 or liver or lemon spots. Black or lemon 

 spots, or black spots turned up with lemon 



