Hound Show
and are also regularly benched at Reigate, while their Masters possess an Association and a Stud Book in conjunction with Masters of Harriers.
Packs of beagles should be level, and their size must be regulated to the nature of the particular country they have to hunt. Small beagles can catch BADLESMERE "MOUNTAIN," BY STANNINGTON "BLUCHER" OUT OF "DAISY." straightness of legs, depth of body through the heart, and well-sprung ribs, should not resemble a foxhound in miniature. The beagle head, with its fairly full eye and large ears, and a tendency to throatiness which gives voice-the most essential quality ROUGH BASSET HOUND. CAPT. T. B. OLIVE'S "ARTFUL" (SOLOMON-HOLDFAST). in hounds hunted on foot is unmistakable, if difficult to describe. During the last ten years much has been done to improve the OFF TO DRAW. hares in a grass country with open fences or low, thin hedges, but it requires a larger type of hound up to 14 or 15 inches to kill in a country where the dykes and walls are large. Over 16 inches, any beagles are too big to run up to in any country, and the old slow southern harrier is indicated for foot-hunting in stone-wall countries, or in marshes intersected by ditches and runners. Beagles are of all hound colours, the old blue-mottled, with hare- and badgerpied and black-and-tan being, perhaps, the best. The so-called Irish beagles are not beagles at all, but there are Welsh beagles, rough-haired, resembling large wire-haired fox-terriers with pendulous ears.
The Basset Hound is a foreign importation, and is of several sorts, both rough and smooth-coated, and also with straight, crooked, and half-crooked legs. It is, of course, a hound of the old foxhound type, artificially dwarfed as to legs, to enable it to be followed on foot. Only seven packs, numbering about eighty couples, are kept in the United Kingdom for the purpose of hunting hares, and the percentage of hares killed to hares found is very much smaller than with beagles. They are, however, easily kept up with on foot, and in some start with a clear sheet under favouring refrain from shooting the hares, in order to auspices. The sportsman who aspires to start a pack of bassets or beagles in a land, or perhaps only a small acreage, will country where he does not own or occupy find himself faced by a slightly more difficult task. In the first place, he will have to ask the permission of the Masters of any other packs of hounds hunting over the proposed country. From these unless in exceptional tional cases-he should not encounter opposition. Provided his fixtures do not ject, and any Master of Foxhounds who clash," no Master of Staghounds will obreally knows his business will welcome the establishment of a pack of beagles in his country-provided, of course, they do not “ DRAWING THE PLOUGH. open countries, where there are no dykes or hedges, serve their purpose, the pleasure of following them being enhanced by their wonderful "music Forming a Pack.-Beagling has become so popular a sport during the past ten years, popular a sport during the past ten years, anddespite the fact that the number of packs hunting in the United Kingdom has increased to over 100-there is still so much scope for the formation of yet other packs in various parts of the country that a few hints upon the formation of a pack to the would-be Master of Foot Beagles may not be unacceptable. To the owner of large estates, sufficiently stocked with hares, the matter is comparatively a simple one, especially if he exercise the sporting rights him self and has any considerable proportion of the agricultural land "in hand." He has only to purchase and kennel his hounds, and express to his tenants a wish that they shall go out on the same days as the fox-hounds -for the simple reason that they assist the for the simple reason that they assist the more important sport by disturbing outlying them back to the coverts, where they are foxes in hedgerows and roots, and scaring heard one of the most competent Masters more properly to be sought. Indeed, I have of Foxhounds of the present day declare that if no beagles hunted over his country, existed, his first step would be to establish or if he should take a country where none Where hares are scarce, a Master of an a pack of the little "foot dogs" himself. established pack of harriers may reasonably object; but where hares are in sufficient his hares how to run without appreciably numbers, beagles will help him by teaching diminishing their numbers. Where hares are numerous enough for coursing, they are, sport being shown by beagles or as a rule, much too numerous to allow of basset D 2 hounds; and the would-be Master were welladvised to abandon his project. The distribution of hares is, however, curiously local, and probably within a few miles one way or another he may find a country quite well suited to his purpose. Where there are no hares it is comparatively simple to stock a country. Live hares are easily and cheaply procured by legitimate methods, and, being very prolific, a small number of jacks and does judiciously turned down in the early spring will provide a sufficient hunting stock by the following October, if the landowners, farmers, and shooting tenants will agree to refrain from shooting or snaring them from entering coverts and disturbing foxes and game. The idea has, however, been proved to be fallacious, and in practice no foot beagles should be so fast that they cannot except in the rarest instances-be kept within the control of the huntsman and his whippers-in.
Having obtained the requisite permission, and being presumably supported by a number of keen hunting folk in the shape of men and women willing to subscribe a guinea or two annually towards the expenses of the pack, or to be "capped" a modest half-crown each time they go out, the prospective Master will have to select IN FULL CRY. his staff. The hon. secretary should be someone well known and liked locally, with influence and tact, and leisure to enable him to attend all the meets. The whippers -in should be keen and athletic young amateurs, able to run up to hounds, with a good working knowledge of their country, and practically untirable. If the new Master will take the trouble to explain quite simply what he expects his respective whippers -in to do towards backing him up in the field, he will usually have no difficulty in getting them to do it. In addition, there may be a paid hand in the shape of a kennel -huntsman or kennel-whipper-in, or-in unpretentious establishments-merely a lad or boy to " muck-out," help bring hounds to the meet, and take them home, and carry a crop and couples. during the summer. Having secured permission from his brother Masters of