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Beagles and Beagling 
the beagle at various times. No one, naturally, can 
furnish positive proofs of these crosses, for nearly 
every English country estate that kept packs had 
“its own secrets in breeding/’ just as the late 
Edward Laverack, the breeder of setters maintained 
that “there were some secrets” he did not deem 
advisable in giving to the public. The secrets, it 
has since been shown, are the crosses lie used in 
his setters. 
In some cases the strains have probably been kept 
purer than others. The old heavy type of black and 
tan strain, known as the “Kerry beagle,” was per¬ 
haps pure of his kind, but he was slow and almost 
too painstaking; something like the old Spanish 
pointer of the past would be as compared with our 
modern dogs. The Kerry beagle was essentially a 
miniature bloodhound, heavy flews, long ears, great 
dewlap and in fact, even his expression resembled 
the bloodhound in a small edition. He, it is said, 
was of Irish origin. 
There came a demand for swifter dogs than those 
of this type, however, and it is then that the various 
crosses are supposed to have been resorted to. The 
greyhound was one of these crosses and some say 
the deerhound, while still others claim that a dash 
of the spaniel has something to do with the long¬ 
haired varieties that were more or less popular in 
some districts. Another quality was still needed; 
this was gameness. For this purpose the bulldog- 
cross was used and sometimes the fox terrier. 
Perhaps the latter was resorted to much oftener 
than some might suppose and when one looks over 
the numerous types of beagles and notes the terrier 
