CLASS I. MAMMALIA: OEDER 5. CARNIVORA. 
219 
Some, but such instances were not common, had a little white about them, such as a star in the 
face, &c. The general opinion is, that the original stock was a mixture of the deep-mouthed 
southern hound and the powerful old English stag-hound. 
Our English aucestors, some centuries ago, discovered the extraordinary power of this breed in 
tracking any atiimal by its scent. They therefore trained it to the chase, and afterward used it 
to hunt down criminals. The perseverance and sagacity of these creatures in following a man on 
whose track they had been set, often for many miles, and even through towns and villages, and 
crowded thoroughfares, was indeed wonderfnl. In general, when they found the culprits, they 
would patiently keep guard over them, and not permit them to move away until their masters 
came up. Sometimes, however, dogs of a ferocious disposition would fall upon them and tear 
them in pieces. The manner in which the blood-hound pursued the robber is thus described by 
the poet Somerville : 
" Soon the sagacious brute, his curling tail 
Flourish'd in air, low bending, plies around 
His busy nose, the steaming vapor snuifs 
Inqvusitive, nor leaves one turf untried, 
Till, conscious of the recent stains, his heart 
Beats quick. His snutSng nose, his active tail, 
Attest his joy. Then, with deep opening mouth. 
That makes the welkin tremble, he proclaims 
Th' audacious felon. Foot by foot he marks 
His winding way. Over the watery ford. 
Dry sandy heaths, and stony barren hills. 
Unerring he pursues, till at the cot 
Arrived, and, seizing by his guilty throat 
The caitiff vile, redeems the captive prey." 
Before the union between England and Scotland, the " Border" between the two countries was 
the theater of constant forays, for the purpose of stealing sheep, cattle, and other property. The 
I English and Scotch were, in fact, as great robbers as the Bedouins of the present day. In this 
state of things the blood-hounds became indispensable as guards. The pursuit of border forayers 
was called the "hot-trod." The "harried" party and his friends followed the marauders with 
blood-hound and bugle-horn, and if his dog could trace the scent into the opposite kingdom, he 
was entitled to pursue them thither. Sir Walter Scott states that the breed "was kept up by the 
Buccleuch family on their border estates till within the eighteenth century, and records the fol- 
lowing narrative : " A person was alive in the memory of man who remembered a blood-hound 
being kept at Eldinhope, in Ettrick Forest, for whose maintenance the tenant had an allowance 
of meal. At that time the sheep were always watched at night. Upon one occasion, when the 
duty had fallen upon the narrator, then a lad, he became exhausted with fatigue, and fell asleep 
upon a bank, near sun-rising. Suddenly he was awakened by the tread of horses, and saw five 
men well mounted and armed ride briskly over the edge of the hill. They stopped and looked 
at the flock ; but the day Avas too far broken to admit the chance of their carrying any of them 
off. One of them, in spite, leaped from his horse, and coming to the shepherd, seized him by the 
belt he wore round his waist, and, setting his foot upon his body, pulled it till it broke, and car- 
ried it away with him. They rode off at the gallop, and the shepherd giving the alarm, the 
blood-hound was turned loose, and the people in the neighborhood alarmed. The marauders, 
however, escaped, notwithstanding a sharp pursuit. This circumstance serves to show how very 
long the hcense of the Borderers continued in some degree to manifest itself." 
This, perhaps, is the last instance of an attempted " Border foray" on record. The times were 
changed. The nobles had ceased to pride themselves on their ignorance of all the arts save the 
art of Avar, and to make it matter of thanksgiving that they kncAV not how to use the pen. Civili- 
zation advanced as learning Avas diffused, till the laAV of the strongest no longer prevailed against 
the laAV of the land. The blood-hound, from the nobler pursuit of heroes and knights, " minions 
of the moon," who sAvept aAvay the cattle and goods of Avhole districts, marking the extent of their 
" raid" by all the horrors of fire and sword, sank to the tracker of the deer-stealer and petty felon, 
as Ave have related. About a century and a quarter ago, when deer-stealing Avas a common crime 
in England, the park-keepers relied upon their blood-hounds principally for detecting the thief ; 
