General Remarks - The Bloodhound - The Foxhound - The Harrier - The Beagle - The Otterhound.

UNDER this general heading are included by sportsmen those varieties of the dog which pursue and kill their game by the nose only, and above ground. As a consequence, greyhounds, deerhounds, pointers, setters, spaniels, and terriers are excluded from the list - greyhounds, because they do not ordinarily hunt by scent; deerhounds, because they are only used to retrieve their quarry when wounded by the rifle; pointers, setters, and spaniels, for the reason that though they find their game by the nose they leave the gun to kill it; and terriers, because they work underground as well as above it. From the latter half of the word greyhound and deerhound, it might naturally be inferred that they could be considered hounds; but in sportmen's language they are not so, and if a man was heard to say that he saw a lot of hounds out on a certain farm, when it turned out that they were greyhounds, he would at once be set down as ignorant of sport and its belongings. The term is therefore confined in the present day to the bloodhound, staghound, foxhound, harrier, beagle, and otterhound.

Except, in Devonshire and Somerset, the staghound is not allowed to kill his quarry, being whipped off as soon as the deer stands at bay; and in all other packs either a pure foxhound of full size is used, as in Her Majesty's, or a bloodhound, as in Mr. Nevill's and Lord Wolverton's, and hence these last are included under the bloodhound or foxhound classes. The Devon, and Somerset are, however, said to be of the pure old Southern hound strain drafted for speed until they are now able to go such pace as fits them for the modern ideas of hunting, which demands a good gallop as the essential to sport. Never having seen them, I can only form an opinion of them on second-hand testimony, but it appears to me from this evidence that they only differ in colour from Mr. Nevill's black tans, being in fact light and corky bloodhounds, and in all probability derived from the same source. It is quite clear, from the series of portraits published in the Field, three years ago, that in France a much greater variety has been developed in the hound than in England, where the foxhound has absorbed nearly all the others into its own capacious net. Even the harrier is now very seldom met with pure, and the old-fashioned beagle is equally rare.

Patience is no longer a virtue cultivated by English sportsmen, by whom the dash and forward cast of the foxhound are greatly preferred, to the careful puzzling out of a cold scent on which our forefathers set so much value. Many good sportsmen contend that a modern foxhound, even of the fastest strains, can make out a cold scent as well as a bloodhound or a beagle, and that it is the change in our farm management from that of former times which makes the existing foxhound appear to have a worse nose than his predecessors. That there has been such a change is indisputable in the corn districts, but in the grass lands - at all events during a wet season - no such excuse can be made, and yet it is notorious that after the lapse of a very few minutes there is now little chance of doing any good with a fox, whereas a hundred years ago no huntsman would think of giving up, if he was sure of the line a full hour after a fox had been viewed. All the hounds - pure and simple - have heads of average size, long and broad noses, and full pendulous ears. They all give tongue when on a scent, and their note is musical, not like that of the terrier, shrill and squeaky.

With the exception of the otterhound and the Welsh harrier, which closely resemble one another, all our modern hounds have stout coats, but their sterns show a fringe of hair underneath. All carry their sterns "gaily," that is, with a considerable upward tendency, but not curled over their backs beyond a right angle. With these characters in common, I now proceed to distinguish each breed from the others.

As the series of articles in the present edition of the "Dogs of the British Islands" is confined to the description of existing varieties, I do not include among them any of those which, though formerly common enough, are now extinct. Consequently, no notice is taken of the Talbot, or of the old Southern hound.