OPINIONS OF NOTED COURSERS 159 



It will now be clear that Czarina must have been truly 

 an extraordinary greyhound ; and from her must date an 

 improvement in the quality of the breed. Her sons, Claret 

 and Vengeance, were famous ; but still more was Topham's 

 Snowball,. the Eclipse of the leash, and his brother, Thornton's 

 Major, who were her grandsons. Snowball never was beaten, 

 and his fame was so great that Sir Walter Scott immortalised 

 him in verse. From him and from his brother Major come 

 all our successful runners, through Senate and Oliver Twist. 

 Most probably King Cob, who might be compared to Touch- 

 stone, was of the same blood. He was of what would be 

 called in those days the Newmarket breed. Gunshot, one of 

 his ancestors, is said to be of Lord Rivers's breed ; and Lord 

 Rivers's Rhoda,' a favourite brood bitch, was a granddaughter 

 of Snowball. Other breeders about Newmarket, such as Inskip 

 and Hassall, would value the strain as highly as he did. There 

 is probably not a greyhound now running who has not King 

 Cob as his progenitor. 



Lidderdale's Champion, Best's Streamer, and later on 

 Hassall's Hercules and Longden's Old Derbyshire Grasper, were 

 all of this breed. 



It is difficult for us at the present time to say which were the 

 successful breeders among greyhounds in the early years of this 

 century ; there was so much more private breeding then, and 

 with it so much jealousy in keeping successful strains to their 

 own kennel, and a dislike to give information on the subject. Un - 

 fortunately for us, Thacker was aware of this feeling, and excused 

 some of his mistakes in his ' Annual ' on the ground that it would 

 have been an impertinence in him to have written to a breeder ot 

 greyhounds for information on the subject. As a consequence, 

 the records of pedigrees are faulty in detail. 



When we come to Hill's Bachelor in 1828, and to Daintree's 

 King Cob in 1838, we find ourselves on somewhat firmer 

 ground. Captain Daintree was one of the first to put his dog 

 at the service of the public, and from that time we find more 

 pedigrees advertised. 



