As the term "Brach" is so often met with in old sporting writers, and as the above quotations show that it was certainly applied to the Bloodhound, as well as to other varieties of hounds, it may be as well to give the definitions of it. Brach seems to be a term of general application to all hunting dogs. In old English and old French it is spelt Brache, and in modern German Brack, and it is applied to dogs that hunt by scent. Cotgrave says that the French Braque is a kind of short-tailed dog, usually of a parti-colour; Spanish Braco is flat-nosed, from the usually blunt, square nose of dogs that hunt by scent.

Jamieson, in his "Scottish Dictionary," defines "Brachell" as "a dog employed to discover and pursue game by scent"; but, whether by change of time or otherwise, Brachell, and also Brach, is generally applied to bitch hounds. Shakespeare seems to use the term indifferently to both sexes. In The Taming of the Shrew we have the lines: -

Brach Merriman - the poor hound is imbost,

And couple Clouder with the deep mouthed Brach evidently referring to dog hounds; but in Henry IV. and other of his plays he seems to indicate bitch hounds: -

I had rather hear Lady, my Brach, howl in Irish.

And H. Taylor may be considered to apply the term to the same sex in the quaint and pretty lines: -

Down lay, in a nook, my lady's Brach,

And said, "My feet are sore: I cannot follow with the pack,

A-hunting of the Boar."

Wright, in his dictionary, defines Brach as "a bitch of the hound kind"; and the author of "The Gentleman's Recreation" says : "There are in England and Scotland two kinds of hunting dogs, and nowhere else in the world : the first is called a Rache, and this is a foot-scenting creature, both of wild beasts, birds, and fishes also, which lie among the rocks; the female hereof in England is called a Brach, which is a mannerly name for all bitch hounds." By "the fishes which lie among the rocks" it may be presumed that otters and seals are intended - the notable phoca that so much disconcerted the gallant, hot-headed Captain Mclntyre.

Sleuth-hounds, or Bloodhounds, were long bred and trained to track Border raiders, and a most exciting chase it must have been through those wild moorlands, as all who have read Scott, even without having visited the scenes he so well depicts, will say. The words of eulogy on the dead Richard Musgrave, pronounced by "the stark moss-trooping Scot," William of Deloraine, who,

By wily turns and desperate bounds, Had baffled Percy's best Bloodhounds, will arise in every reader's memory, but they will lose nothing by repetition here: -

Yet rest thee, God ! for well I know I ne'er shall find a nobler foe In all the northern countries here, Whose word is snaffle, spur, and spear. Thou wert the best to follow gear ; 'Twas pleasure, as we looked behind, fo see how thou the chase could wind,

Cheer the dark Bloodhound on his way, And with the bugle rouse the fray. I'd give the lands of Deloraine Dark Musgrave were alive again.

In order to follow the Border rievers, or cattle-lifters, a special law, imposing a tax for the maintenance of Bloodhounds as trackers, obtained in Scotland; and by the law of Hot-trod, which implied tracking the rievers at once, on discovery of the loss of stock - or gear, as Scott has it - if the hounds traced the thief to a house, and showed their desire to enter, the occupants refusing admittance were held equally culpable with the cattle-lifters, and rendered themselves liable to punishment.

In later times the Bloodhound has been used successfully in tracing poachers. Meyrick, in his useful little work on dogs, gives an interesting example of a successful poacher-hunt. The hound was also often used for tracing thieves; and, as an instance of this, about the beginning of the last century the Thrapstone Association for the Prosecution of Felons - a class of institution now almost obsolete - kept a trained Bloodhound for the tracking of sheep-stealers.

So excellent an authority as Colonel Hutchinson, author of "Dog Breaking," gives details of a case of Bloodhounds, "held with long cords," being put on the track of a gang of poachers in a frosty night of December, 1844, and following them for nine miles into the town of Coventry; and he also quotes, as an established fact, that a discharged groom, who had mutilated a horse of his former master, was tracked by a Bloodhound for twenty miles, and followed to his bedroom, where the man was found and, in proof of the sagacity of the hound, admitted his guilt.

As late as March, 1896, a well-authenticated instance of the value of the Bloodhound for gamekeeping purposes was given in the Field, as below. For obvious reasons there is a desire to omit the name of the locality where this took place; but the truth of the narrative is vouched for by the superintendent of the police of the district, by his constable who used the hound, and by the breeder of the hound. The story is as follows: -

Some time this year a constable was out in the early morning, when about 6.30 a.m. he came across a couple of notorious poachers, who were walking along a footpath through some fields. They, seeing the constable, called out in alarm as a signal to their companions, who were no doubt coming behind. Owing to the darkness, the latter escaped; but the constable took some rabbits and nets from the men he had met, for being in possession of which, under such circumstances, they were later on duly punished. At daybreak the constable, accompanied by a young Bloodhound bitch, returned to the place, and was able to dis.tinguish the footsteps of a number of men who had come out of a turnip field. They had separated, some going in one direction, others in another. The hound was put upon the tracks, and with nose to the ground she hunted them across two fields, going straight up to sundry bags of game which had been hidden in a hedgerow. So far so good; but the constable was not yet satisfied, and he took his hound back to where she had originally been laid on the line. This time she went off in another direction, and soon left the policeman far behind. He, following up, however, ultimately found her standing at another hedgerow, where more bags of game were found concealed. These were secretly watched all day, but the poachers must have "smelled a rat," for none of themselves or their families came near. This is rather to be wondered at, for the bags were numerous and their contents valuable. At night the constable and the lessee of the shooting concealed themselves near the place where the first lot of game was discovered. Now they had not long to wait, for in about half an hour there came a sound of approaching footsteps, and two men appeared, who immediately appropriated the bags and their contents, which included nets and the usual poachers' paraphernalia. These were at once recognised, and, the spoil taken from them, were allowed to go. Summonses followed in due course, and when the case was heard a plea was set up that they had not taken the game themselves, but had been sent for it by their mates. Fines of 40s. and costs were imposed, or, failing the payment, a month's imprisonment.