JVhY 25, 1903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
71 
stranger; any dog will hunt those of his master or of 
someone he knows, and of a stranger, probably, whose 
shoes are soaked in some stinking preparation to leave 
a scent behind. The bloodhound requires nothing but 
the so-called "clean shoe," and, once lay him on the 
track, he hunts it as a foxhound would the fox, or 
the harrier or beagle the hare. 
To proceed with the following description of man- 
hunting with bloodhounds: 
The storm of Sunday had passed, and how deep the 
snow lay in the streets and in the country places on the 
Monday, are now a matter of history. The air was 
keen and sarp, made so by a brisk north wind which 
blew on the Monday morning, when we left Euston 
Station for Boxmoor, where we were to see two couples 
of Mr. Brough's bloodhounds run in the open couh- 
try_ without assistance of any kind, and under any con- 
ditions which might prevail at the time. Surely the 
surroundings could not well have been more unfavor- 
able unless a rapid thaw, immediately following the 
snow, had made them so. At Boxmoor the country 
was thoroughly white. The snow lay on the ground 
to an uniform depth of about eight inches; where it 
had drifted, occasionally we were almost up to our 
knees. For a time the sky was fairly bright, but later 
a blinding shower of snow fell, which happily cleared 
off in about an hour's time. At our terminus we were 
joined by Mr. Holmes Pegler, who brought with him 
a dog hound named Danger, by Maltravers out of 
Blossom. This hound a few generations back can 
claim some of the old southern hound blood; but he 
shows not the slightest trace of this, being a good- 
looking black and tan animal, though not iij, the best 
of form, so far as health is concerned. He had very 
little preliminary training, and thus afforded fair evi- 
dence of what a bloodhound will do under adverse cir- 
cumstances. Our small party — which included, in addi- 
tion to the gentlemen already mentioned, three ladies 
in a sleigh, Dr. Philpot, and Mr. W. K. Taunton — 
made the best way along the lanes to the Downs, and, 
ascended them, on to the Sheep Hanger Common. 
Toward the summit we found ourselves on one side 
of a pretty valley, which even under its wintry garb 
looked quite charming, and afforded some idea of the 
beauty of the locality when summer blooms. How- 
ever, before quite reaching the hilltop it was decided 
to give Danger a trial. 
A man was selected for the purpose, and the course 
he had to run was pointed out to him. The thickly 
' lying snow made locomotion very difficult, and as even 
now there came a recurrence of the storm, a compara- 
I tively short start was given. In seven minutes from 
the time the man had set off, Danger was laid on his 
track, and, picking up the line in an instant, went away 
at a quick rate along the hillside. We tried to run 
with the hound, but to do this in the deep snow and 
. keep Danger in sight was impossible. After following 
him some 600 yards or so, we had to make our way 
to the tiny knot of spectators on the hilltop, and once 
■ there saw that he had lost the line, after running it well 
for something less than half a mile. In making a cast 
around, he unfortunately struck the wind of the spec- 
tators, and came back to them. Nor did he seem very 
' persevering in attempting to regain the scent, giving 
us the idea that in previous trials he had not been al- 
lowed to depend upon his own exertions 'to recover a 
^ lost trail. 
Mr. Brough's hounds included Barnaby (one of the 
• couple brought to London at the instance of the late 
' Commissioner of Police), and Beeswing, with Belhus 
I and Blueberry, their offspring. The two first named 
[ are well-known hounds on the show bench. Barnaby 
had run at the Warwick trials; the younger animals 
I are fairly good looking, and their work was quite satis- 
factory. Blueberry was afforded the next trial, a 
stranger to him acting as the quarry, taking a course 
down the -hill over sundry fences, making one side of 
a circle, a distance of about a mile. After eight min- 
utes' law the hound was unleashed, and had no diffi- 
culty in hitting the line, though snow was falling heav- 
ily. She carried it along at a good pace, quite mute, 
and, a little at a loss at one fence in the hollow, cast 
well around, refound the line, and, without more ado, 
ran it up to the man. 
At one portion of this trial a laborer crossed the 
track, but the bitch stuck to her line, and was not 
thrown out for a moment. Without resting, the two 
couples of the Scarborough hounds had a quarry pro- 
vided in Dr. Philpot. For some distance he made his 
way along the hillside, through scrub and stunted 
bushes, down to a hedge at the foot of the vale. Here 
there was a road, and, crossing this and a fence, the 
quarry made up a bare field to a plantation. Skirting 
the wood for 300 yards, another fence was reached, 
across this, along some bare ground, by the side of an- 
other hedge, to the foot of the hill where we stood. 
No better view of such a trial could be had. This 
course was quite a mile. As the four hounds were to 
start, they were slipped ten minutes after their quarry 
had gone. Barnaby, a little slow in commencing, was 
not long behind, and, with a fresh and cheerful burst 
of music, the little pack raced along at an extraordi- 
nary peace, considering the depth of the snow. A little 
hesitancy in the bottom, and Barnaby cast forward a 
little, had "it" again, "his wife and. children" flew to 
his note, and away they rattled up to the plantation. 
The old dog's size and strength were useful in this 
deep going, and he led the way; but scent must have 
been good, for, without losing it again, they raced down 
the hill, and fairly caught their man before he re- 
ascended from the valley. A good trial in every way. 
Possibly the prettiest hunt of the day was afforded 
by Beeswing and Danger, with Master Pegler to be 
hunted, and a ten minutes' start given him. These 
hounds did not at the first hit off the line, but, when 
fairly on the track, went through the scrub, down the 
hill to the foot road, and over the fence without a 
check. Some nice w^ork was done in the bare field, 
especially where the quarry struck off at a sharp angle! 
and along by the fence of the plantation. They had 
no difficulty in making out the whole of the course, 
which we would take to be about three-quarters of a 
mile. 
The final trial was run by the entire two couples and 
a half of hounds, and, with fifteen minutes' law to the 
quarry. Now that the snow had ceased, the pack quick- 
ly went along the right line down the hill and over 
the first fence. In the middle of the second field, some 
quarter of a rnile from the start. Danger seemed at a 
loss, and, turning back to his owner, who was following 
as fast as the deep snow would admit, somewhat dis- 
concerted the other hounds, as they turned round to 
the voice of Mr. Pegler, who called his hound up. 
Higher up the field Beeswing appeared to be the one 
that struck the scent again, her voice attracting her 
kennel companions, who rattled along the correct track 
up to a hedge which lay to the left. The quarry had 
skirted this boundary line, and made his way down hill 
to a couple of hay stacks, or, at any rate, stacks of 
some kind. He had doubled along the road here, but 
hounds found him without the slightest difficulty. 
As all hunting and shooting men know, scent is one 
of the mysteries of nature. Here we were out on a 
day when one might reasonably expect that hounds 
would be unable, to run a hundred yards without a 
check. Still, all these bloodhounds, with their quarry 
given from seven to fifteen minutes' start, hit the line,, 
and took it along at a "racing pace," it may be called, 
when the ten or eight inches of snow are taken into 
consideration. The keen north wind, too, must have 
been against scent, and one of the best trials of all was 
run in a blinding snowstorm. Surely, then, these 
bloodhounds have olfactory powers of more than aver- 
age excellence; at any rate, that Monday they proved 
to us their possession of such. The men who acted 
as quarry had no knowledge of these hounds, no 
strongly smelling concoctions were smeared over their 
boots; and, indeed, they had been standing over the 
shoe tops in snow during the whole of the time the 
trials were taking place. So the "clean shoe" must in 
the end have been sadly water soaked. These blood- 
hounds did all we expected them to do, even more, 
and we are quite prepared to see the same hounds, 
under more favorable circumstances, hunt a man's trail 
or footsteps, though they be two hours old. Running 
singly, each hound was mute; together they gave 
tongue, and their voices were very fine. It may be in- 
teresting to state that, in their earlier training, all Mr. 
Brough's hounds ran silently, whether hunting to- 
gether or separately; but, working them with a noisy 
basset, they were tempted or encouraged to throw their 
voices, as they now do when hunting in company. 
The trials arranged by the Kennel Club were ad- 
vertised to take place on the race course adjoining the 
Alexandra Palace, on Wednesday morning, at 10:30. 
As it happened, when that hour was reached, the only 
one of the three judges present was Colonel Starkie, 
who a little later was joined by Lord Alfred Fitzroy. 
Then snow began to fall, few of the stewards were ni 
the dog show, and the prospects seemed to favor an 
abandonment of the trials altogether. Up to 11:30 
o'clock nothing had been decided upon, so Mr. Craven, 
with his couple of entered hounds, went home. Next 
it was officially stated that a decision would be come to 
at twenty minutes to one, when it was resolved to hold 
the trials. The_ snow had by this time given place to 
rain; a cold, chilly wind blew from the southwest; and 
these combinations, with the addition of the wet, damp 
ground, upon which old snow lay three inches or more 
in depth, made the surroundings of these trials as un- 
favorable as they well could be. 
Mr. Lindsay Hogg, in addition to the gentlemen 
already named, judged, but the duties were almost 
sinecures. Several tracks had been marked out by 
small flags, and, although these courses were said to 
be 600 yards in length, they appeared considerably 
more — probably that distance straight away, with the 
run home additional. Each hound was allowed a track 
of his own, which extended along the race course for 
several hundred j^ards on the flat, over sundry lots of 
railings, winding round in the direction of a small plan- 
tation. The hounds had to pass this, and then enter 
the road on the run home. 
The latter portion of the track was along the same 
line by each man who acted as the quarry, thus mak- 
ing the trials more difficult tests for the hound; though 
those that ran first must necessarily have had the ad- 
vantage, as the latter part of the road was less foiled 
by one or two men than it would have been by half a 
dozen. Two stakes were provided, the one for the 
"clean boot," the other for the "not clean boot." The 
latter in this instance meant that the shoe soles of the 
man acting as quarry had been rubbed with horse 
flesh, the only material at hand for the purpose. As a 
fact, the second stake never ought to have been ar- 
ranged, and it is by no means to the credit of a blood- 
hound that he should require such assistance; the status 
of the trials was thus reduced to the commonplace 
"hound dog" trials, so popular in the rural districts 
of the North of England. As matters progressed, the 
bloodhounds actually hunted the clean boot better than 
they did the soiled one, and we would suggest that in 
future, when the "not clean boot" is to be run, terriers 
rather than bloodhounds should be utilized for the 
work. 
However, in due course one of the keepers out of 
the show was_ despatched as quarry, with a start of ten 
minutes, during which time he traversed more than 
three-fourths of the course. Then the first hound, Mr. 
B. C. Knowles's Koodoo, was slipped. He struck the 
line immediately, but lost it after going about a hundred 
yards, and, casting round, struck the wind of some of 
the spectators, and, failing to persevere, was called up. 
_Mr. W, J. Scott's Hebe III., a smart bitch, likewise 
picked up the line quickly, and, running it a little too 
much to windward, was at a loss for a moment. She 
cast well, and without assistance struck the scent, and 
kept it until she turned the corner at the plantation 
and out of sight of the spectators. For a time Hebe 
tried to regain the lost line, and looked like doing so 
until catching the wind of a laborer, and rather start- 
ling him by making his passing acquaintance. She 
failed to finish her task. 
Mr. R. Hood Wright's well-known Hector II., who 
had performed well at the trials in the grounds of 
Warwick Castle two years before, and now nearly eight 
years old. _ was, after the stipulated five minutes, put 
upon the line. He did not start with so raucl? dash as 
the bitch had done, carried his head nearer the ground, 
and ran the exact line the quarry had taken. This he 
did well, and the manner in which he leaped those rail- 
ings the man had climbed, and ran under those he had 
crept through, interested the spectators not a little. 
There was no mistake as to the correctness of his nose 
up to the plantation; but here, where the quarry had 
turned, the hound was at fault. He cast about till 
striking the line again, and was hard on the track of 
the man on turning into the road home. This he stuck 
to until near the goal, when he became somewhat dis- 
concerted, no doubt striking the wind of the crowd as 
he approached them. His trial was very well run. 
Mrs. Danger's Jaff was absent, and Mr. E. Brough's 
Blueberry strangely refused to run, though what we 
saw of her work on Monday proves her an excellent 
bitch, and her owner considered her about his best, 
Mr. Brough's Barnaby, mentioned earlier on, went 
quicker along the line the runner had taken than Hec- 
tor had done, and, like him, cleared or went under the 
railings according to the mode the quarry had adopted. 
Just before reaching the plantation Barnaby lost the 
scent, but cast to the right and left until it was struck 
again. He, too, was a considerable time out of sight 
behind the plantation, but on reappearing in the road 
he was running the line of the man, which he con- 
tinued much as Mr. Wright's hound had done, failing 
to quite come up to the winning post for simlar rea- 
sons. 
Dr. Hales Parry's Primate was absent, so the end 
of the stake was reached, there being four of the nine 
entries that failed to meet their engagement. The 
judges awarded the prizes as follows: First, Mr. R. 
H. Wright's Hector II.; second, Mr. E. Brough's 
Barnaby; third, Mr. W. J. Scott's Hebe III.; the fourth, 
of course, being withheld. There was little to choose 
between the first two, for both ran excellent trials, 
considering the unfavorable surroundings, and afforded 
ample proof, even to the incredulous, that the blood- 
hound will hunt a man without even smelling any part 
of his person or clothes until laid on the track" of his 
footsteps. 
The second stake is of no account whatever, being 
that already alluded to, where the men acting as quarry 
had their shoe soles smeared with raw horseflesh.. It 
was, however, thought that three competitors of the 
five entries would run well, so the time was taken, and 
Koodoo, who did badly on the "clean boot," now ran 
a brilliant course at a good pace, going the distance, 
including a check behind the wood, in five minutes. 
Hebe III. and Hector II. both began well, but, losing 
the line at about three-fourths the distance, failed to 
regain it, and were called up. They were awarded equal 
seconds, Mr. Knowles's Koodoo taking premier honors. 
So much for the bloodhound trials; and now, when 
writing in. 1892, they appear to have been entirely dis- 
continued, at any rate so far as public exhibitions of 
them are concerned. 
Here mention must be made of the pack of blood- 
hounds, kept about sixteen years ago, by the late Lord 
Wolverton, who hunted the "carted" deer with them in 
Dorsetshire and in the Biackmore Vale country. They 
■were sold by him to Lord Carrington, who had them 
but a single season, during which he showed sport in 
Buckinghamshire, From here they went into the ken- 
nels of Count Couteulx de Canteleu, in France, where 
they have been useful in hunting both wild deer and 
wild boar. 
Prior to this Mr. Selby Lowndes had several couples 
of bloodhounds, in Whaddon Chase, where occasionally 
they had a run after deer. One of his hounds, named 
Gamester, bore a great reputation as a man-hunter, 
and on more than one occasion was useful in captur- 
ing thieves. This hound appears to have been a waif 
from some other kennel, for he was purchased from a 
hawker, for ten pounds, the latter using him as a pro- 
tection, and to run under his van. 
Then it is said, bloodhounds have been owned by the 
verderers in connection with the New Forest in Hamp- 
. shire, but they were known as Talbots, and most of 
these hounds were smaller than our modern hounds. 
Mr. T. Nevil had a small pack at Chillend, near Win- 
chester, dark-colored hounds— black St. Huberts they 
were called; a well-known writer in Bailey's Magazine, 
gives a long description of them, which, he says, were 
descendants of the pack of which William Rufus was 
master. It was said they would hunt anything, from 
"the jackal and the lordly stag, to the water-rat and 
such 'small deer.' " At the present time there is no 
pack of bloodhounds kept in this country for hunting 
purposes, still, with the many admirers of the race, 
there is little fear of the strain being allowed to be- 
come of the past. 
As already hinted, our bloodhound has, in reality, 
suffered less from a craze to breed for certain exagger- 
ated features, than some other dogs have done. He is 
still a fairly powerful and large hound, with great 
thickness of bone, well sprung ribs and considerable 
power behind. I rather fancy that, like most large- 
sized dogs, he fails more in his loins and hind legs 
than elsewhere, nor does he, as a rule, carry so much 
muscle as a foxhound. No doubt in head and ears 
he has much improved since the time he was kept for 
the pubHc good at the expense of the inhabitants of the 
Scottish borders. 
Mr. Brough, writing in the Century Magazine, about 
three years ago, goes at considerable length into the 
training of bloodhounds, which is best done by allow- 
ing the hound to hunt the "clean boot," rather than 
one smeared with blood or anything else. He says: 
Hounds work better when entered to one particular 
scent and kept to that only, Mr. Brough never allows 
his hounds to hunt anything but the clean boot, but 
begins to take his pups to exercise on the roads when 
three or four months old, and a very short time suffices 
to get them under good command. You can begin 
scarcely too early to teach pups to hunt the clean 
boot. For the first few times it is best to let them 
run some one they know; afterward it does not mat- 
ter how often the runner is changed. He should caress 
and make much of the pups and then let them see him 
start, but get out of their sight as quickly as possible 
and run m a straight line, say 200 yards up wind on 
grass-land, and then hide himself. The man \yho hun^^ 
