In 1620 we have an account of two packs of the black and tan St. Huberts belonging to the Cardinal de Guise and the Marquis of Souvray. The St. Huberts were transported to England at the time of the Conquest, and Henri IV. presented a team to James I. From about 1200 to the year 1789 the abbots of the St. Hubert Monastery annually supplied the royal kennels of France with three couples of black and tan St. Hubert hounds, which were used as limiers, and were very greatly prized. At the end of Louis XIV.'s reign, according to Gaffet de la Briffardiere, they were preserved by gentlemen in the north of France for their all-round hunting capacities. By the time of D'Yauville the breed had become rare."

There is no higher living authority on the question than the Count, and he has no doubt that the Bloodhound was derived from the St. Hubert. He considers that at the time when fox-hunting in something like its present form was first instituted, the Sleuth-hound, or hound of the country, was not found fast enough, and crosses were made with the Greyhound and other breeds, and gradually the present Foxhound was evolved. During this transition it became customary, when speaking of the hound of the country (as distinct from the Foxhound), to allude to him as the Bloodhound, meaning the hound of pure blood, just as we speak of a blood horse.

Writers are apt to lay too much stress on colour, and, in studying this question, it must not be forgotten that black and tan combined are colours common to almost every breed: Spaniels, Setters, Collies, Terriers, and even Greyhounds, have been known of these colours, and with the characteristic spots on cheeks and over the eyes.

Turberville says: "The Bloodhounds of this colour prove good, especially such as are 'cole' black." The dun hounds are much nearer in colour to our modern dog; these were dun on the back, having their legs and forequarters red or tanned, and it is added the light-tanned dogs were not so strong.

Gervase Markham, who was a very copious writer, follows Turberville pretty closely. His description of a Talbot-like hound would, in many respects, stand for a modern Bloodhound, although certainly not in head, on which point he does not seem to have expressed his meaning very clearly. He says: "A round, thick head, with a short nose uprising, and large, open nostrils; ears exceedingly large and thin, and down hanging much lower than his chaps, and the flews of his upper lips almost two inches lower than his nether chaps; back strong and straight; fillets thick and great; huckle bones round and hidden; thighs round; hams straight; tail long and rush-grown - that is, big at the setting on, and small downwards; legs large and lean; foot high knuckled and well clawed, with a dry, hard sole."

From all this, and much more that might be quoted, it may be gathered that whilst the dun and tan - that is, the black saddle back and tan-legged - dogs most nearly agree in colour with our Bloodhound, it is a mere accident of selection, although that may have been influenced by that coloured dog showing more aptitude for the special work he was put to, and certainly the colour is admirably adapted to a dog used for night work, as he often was; for even Dr. Caius relates how these dogs were kept in dark kennels, that they might better do night work. The practice would assuredly defeat its object.

Daniels, in his "Rural Sports," says of the Bloodhound: "This singular race of dogs is nearly extinct, Mr. Astle and his family possessing a few only of the pure breed. The height of the species was seven or eight and twenty inches; of compact, muscular form; the upper part of the face broad, gradually contracted to the snout; nostrils wide; ears large and pendulous, and narrowing to the tip. One distinguishing trait of purity in the breed was the colour, which was almost invariably a reddish tan, progressively darkening to the upper part, with a mixture of black upon the back."

It appears that Daniels made the mistake, so common with modern ephemeral writers on dogs, of taking a particular strain or a kennel as the type of a breed, instead of a variation of the breed in unimportant points.

When the Bloodhound was first used to track fugitives has never been satisfactorily determined. However, an undoubted allusion to their employment in such a capacity that we have found occurs in "Blind Harry's Life of William Wallace," the Scottish patriot, as the following lines, which have been so frequently quoted by writers on the Bloodhound, show: -

About the ground they set on breid and length A hundredth men, chairgit in arms Strang, To keep a hunde that they had them amang, In Gillisland there was that Brachell bred, Sikyr of scent, to follow them that fled. Sae was she used in Eske and Liddesdale, Quhile she gat bluid nae fleeing might avail.

And even if the above is not the first mention of the subject, it is at least a very early one. Again: -

But this sleuth Brache, quilke sekyr was and keen, On Wallace fute followit sae felloune fast Quilk in thar sicht thai prochit at the last.

In the traditions of the peasantry of the West of Scotland many stirring stories of the "hair-breadth 'scapes" of Wallace and Bruce from Bloodhounds still live, and some of them at the present moment come up fresh to our mind, although they have lain buried for many years. An old MS., referring to King Edward I. pursuing Robert Bruce, when as yet a claimant only to the Scottish crown, says: -

The King Edward with horse and hound him sought - With men on foot, through marshes, moss, and mire; Through woods also, and mountains, where they fought.

By the above-quoted instances we see that the use of the Bloodhound as a tracker of fugitives was a common enough practice with our ancestors.

In the metrical legend of Owen Glendower these lines occur : -

For as the dogs pursue the silty doe,

The Brach behind, the hounds on every side,

So traced they me among the mountains wide.