"Warn'd by the streaming light and merry lark,
Forth rush the jolly clan; with tuneful throats
They carol loud, and in grand chorus joined,
Salute the new-born day.
Then to the copse
Thick with entangled grass, or prickly furze,
With silence lead thy many-coloured hounds
In all their beauty's pride."--SOMERVILLE.
It is impossible to enter upon a description of the foxhound without
considerable diffidence. Whether we consider the enthusiastic
admiration it excites amongst sportsmen, the undeviating perseverance
and high courage of the animal, its perfect symmetry, and the music of
its tongue, which warms the heart and gives life and spirit to man and
horse, it must be difficult to do justice to his merits. I will,
however, endeavour to do my best; and should I fail, it will not be
for want of admiration of the noble animal whose qualifications I am
about to illustrate with characteristic anecdotes.
In giving a description of the various breeds of dogs, every one must
be aware that by crossing and recrossing them many of those we now see
have but little claim to originality. The foxhound, the old Irish
wolf-dog, and the colley or shepherd's dog, may, perhaps, be
considered as possessing the greatest purity of blood. My opinion
respecting the foxhound is partly founded on the following curious
fact:--
In Wilkinson's "Manners and Customs of the Egyptians," there is a
representation of as varmint a pack of foxhounds as modern eye could
wish to see. It is copied from a painting found in the interior of the
tomb of the Pharaoh under whom Joseph served. Every individual hound
is characteristic of the present breed, with all their courage and
animation. Each dog's tail was as an old Irish huntsman, who used to
glory in seeing his hounds carry their sterns after the hardest day,
once said to his master, "not behind them at all, plaize your honour,
but curling out over their shoulders."
If the copy be correct, and there is no reason to doubt it, the dog of
this breed must be considered of a much more ancient date than is
generally supposed. There is every reason to believe that the first
dogs came from Asia. Indeed, history, both sacred and profane,
confirms this. At all events, the fact just mentioned is sufficiently
curious, and may serve to confirm the supposition I have ventured to
make of the purity of the blood of our modern foxhound.
A volume might be written on the characteristics of these dogs, both
in the kennel and the field, and I will endeavour to illustrate this
by a few anecdotes.
It is well known to those who have lived near a kennel, that every
morning at the first gleam of light the hounds invariably salute the
glorious return of day, by joining simultaneously in a full chorus of
voices, 'a musical discord,' called by huntsmen "their morning hymn."
This concert does not consist of barking and yapping as many may
suppose, but something like the "Hullah system," yet far more sonorous
to a sportsman's ear.
Those who have witnessed the process of feeding hounds cannot but
acknowledge that it is a most pleasing sight. We see the anxiety
depicted in their countenances to detect the huntsman's eye, who calls
them singly by name in a low tone of voice, nor does one offer to stir
till his time comes. Each dog also takes every day the same position,
like children at school, except that all are obedient, and there is
no noise. His late Majesty George IV., in his younger days, was a
constant attendant at the royal kennel at feeding-time, and many of
the royal family have also been to see the hounds fed at that place.
Close to the Duke of Beaufort's kennel at Badmington a tame fox was
confined, and between it and the foxhounds a great friendship existed.
When the hounds were let out they played with the fox, who, on his
part, was equally ready to greet them. This reciprocal kindness had
continued some time, until one day a hunted fox, much exhausted, ran
for shelter into a bush close to the hutch of the tame one. The
hounds, in the eagerness of the chase, ran into the latter, mistaking
him for the other, and instantly killed him. No sooner, however, were
they aware of their having occasioned the death of their old
acquaintance, than each hound slunk away, appearing conscious and
ashamed of what had been done, nor could they be induced to touch the
dead fox when thrown amongst them.
Amongst other curious anecdotes of foxhounds, the following may be
mentioned. Some years ago, Sir John Cope had a hound called Clermont,
which was in the constant habit, when the pack killed a fox, of taking
possession of the animal's head. This he invariably carried in his
mouth, as if it was a trophy, and on arriving at the kennel would put
it down at the kennel door. In this way he must have imposed a severe
task on himself, as the pack had frequently twenty miles to go home
when the chase was over. The weight was not indeed great; but the
dog's mouth being distended the whole time must have made the task
anything but a pleasant one.
Some hounds are possessed of extraordinary instinct, which enables
them to find their way back to their kennels over country which they
had never before traversed. When George III. kept hounds in the Home
Park, Windsor, General Manners, one of the equerries, took a hound
named Bustler with him in his carriage to London. He remained there a
few days, and then travelled to Bloxholm in Lincolnshire, the dog
being still his companion inside the carriage. In less than a month,
however, Bustler found his way back to Frogmore.
The captain of a vessel informed me that he had once picked up a dog
in mid-channel between Brighton and Calais, swimming boldly and
strongly towards the French coast. If this dog was endeavouring to
make his way back to a beloved master, it was an extraordinary
instance of affection.
A few years ago some hounds were embarked at Liverpool for Ireland,
and were safely delivered at a kennel far up in that country. One of
them, not probably liking his quarters, found his way back to the port
at which he had been landed from Liverpool. On arriving at it, some
troops were being embarked in a ship bound to that place. This was a
fortunate circumstance for the old hound, as during the bustle he was
not noticed. He safely arrived at Liverpool, and on his old master, or
huntsman rather, coming down stairs one morning, he recognised his
former acquaintance waiting to greet him.
A similar circumstance happened to some hounds sent by the late Lord
Lonsdale to Ireland. Three of them escaped from the kennel in that
country, and made their appearance again in Leicestershire.
The love of home, or most probably affection for a particular
individual, must be strongly implanted in dogs to induce them to
search over unexplored and unknown regions for the being and home they
love. Hunger, it might be supposed, would alone stop the ardour of
their pursuit, and induce them to seek for nourishment and shelter at
a stranger's door. But such is not the case. Hungry, foot-sore,
fatigued, and exhausted, the noble and faithful animal presses onward,
guided by an instinct which man does not possess, and proving the
strength of his love by his indefatigable and ardent exertions. Poor,
faithful animal! and is it possible that you are subjected to ill
treatment, cruelty, and neglect by those who owe you a large debt of
gratitude? Your exertions procure amusement, your watchfulness and
fidelity give protection, and neither sickness nor misfortune will
induce you to forsake the object of your attachment.
But it is time to resume our anecdotes of foxhounds, and the following
is a proof of the high courage they so often display, as well as
their emulative spirit.
In drawing a strong covert, a young bitch gave tongue very freely,
whilst none of the other hounds challenged. The whipper-in rated to no
purpose, the huntsman insisted she was wrong, and the whip was applied
with great severity, in doing which the lash most unfortunately took
the orb of the eye out of the socket. Notwithstanding the excruciating
pain she must inevitably have laboured under, the poor suffering
animal again flew to the scent, and exultingly proved herself to be
right, for a fox having stole away, she broke covert after him
unheeded, and continued the chase alone. After much delay and cold
hunting the pack at length hit off the chase. At some distance a
farmer made a signal with much vehemence to the company, who, upon
coming up to him, were informed that they were very far behind the
fox, for that a single hound, very bloody about the head, had passed a
field from him, and was running breast-high, and that there was little
chance of getting up to him. The pack, however, at her coming to a
check, did at length get up, and, after some cold hunting, the bitch
again hit off the scent, and the fox was killed after a severe run.
The eye of the poor but high-spirited dog, which had hung pendent
during the chase, was removed by a pair of scissors after the fox was
dead.
The following is another instance of the persevering strength and
spirit of foxhounds:--
A gentleman of the name of Pearson, residing in Essex, had a couple
and a half of young and newly-entered hounds. One day they
accidentally followed him in his ride, and strayed into a large covert
by the roadside, and presently found something which they eagerly
hunted. After trying a long time to halloo them off, Mr. Pearson
proceeded to Colchester, where his business detained him some hours.
Upon his return he heard them in the covert, and found, by some people
at work by the side of it, that they had continued running during his
absence, and had driven a fox over the field in which they were at
work backward and forward several times. Mr. Pearson got as near to
them as possible, continuing to give them every encouragement. After
hunting the fox a long time in the covert he at last broke, and was
killed after a run of some miles. The time these hounds were hunting
was seven hours. Hounds have even been known to have continued a chase
for ten hours, great part of the time being hard running. A fox was
once unkennelled near Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, at twenty-seven
minutes past nine, and except half-an-hour taken up in bolting him
from a rabbit-burrow, the hounds had a continued run until fourteen
minutes past five in the evening, when they killed the fox in good
style. During this space of nearly eight hours of most severe
running, several horses died in the field, and others were severely
injured.
A hound, the property of Mr. Teasdale of Ousby, Cumberland, during a
storm, took the quest of a fox, which he pursued for the extraordinary
space of thirty hours, four of which were run within view of some
miners, who were employed upon Dalton Fell. The dog and fox were at
that time running round the bottom of a hill. The arch dog, still
keeping on the side of Reynard which led to his clift in the rock, at
last came up to him; but being so much exhausted by his toilsome
chase, he was unable to make him his prey for some time, and they lay
as if lifeless together. The miners then made up to his assistance;
but so ardent was his desire to finish Reynard himself, that he would
not suffer them to come near till he had destroyed him.
A foxhound bitch, in the middle of a chase, was taken in labour, and
brought forth a puppy. Ardour for the pursuit, united to attachment
for her progeny, induced her to snatch it up in her mouth, and follow
her companions, with whom she soon came up, and in this interesting
situation she continued the whole day,--a discredit to the huntsman,
and all who joined in the pursuit, to allow the poor animal to undergo
so violent an exercise under such circumstances.
In order to account for the power of endurance which foxhounds are
known to possess, it should be mentioned that their strength is very
great. A well-bred hound has been known to measure as much round the
arm of the fore-leg as a moderate-sized horse does below the knee. I
was assured of this fact by a well-known huntsman, and it may serve in
some measure to account for the following instance of undeviating
perseverance in a foxhound, related by Mr. Daniel in his Supplement to
his "Rural Sports."
The circumstance took place in the year 1808, in the counties of
Inverness and Perth, and perhaps surpasses any length of pursuit known
in the annals of hunting. On the 8th of June in that year, a fox and
hound were seen near Dunkeld in Perthshire, on the high road,
proceeding at a slow trotting pace. The dog was about fifty yards
behind the fox, and each was so fatigued as not to gain on the other.
A countryman very easily caught the fox, and both it and the dog were
taken to a gentleman's house in the neighbourhood, where the fox died.
It was afterwards ascertained that the hound belonged to the Duke of
Gordon, and that the fox was started on the morning of the 4th of
June, on the top of those hills called Monaliadh, which separate
Badenoch from Fort Augustus. From this it appeared that the chase
lasted four days, and that the distance traversed from the place where
the fox was unkennelled to the spot where it was caught, without
making any allowances for doubles, crosses, &c., and as the crow
flies, exceeded seventy miles.
It is a curious fact, that if a foxhound is taken for the first time
into a new and strange country, and he is lost, when he returns to his
kennel he does so across fields where he had never been before, and
not by roads along which he had been taken out. A gentleman who kept
foxhounds had an opportunity of observing this. His house and kennel
were on the banks of a river, and a new hound accompanied the pack,
which went across a bridge near the kennel. He was lost, and came back
over the fields direct upon the kennel, and howled when he arrived on
the banks of the river. We know but little of the peculiar instinct
which thus enables dogs to find their way across a strange country.
Let me here give an anecdote that was communicated to me by the
brother of the gentleman to whom it occurred. This gentleman was a
rigid Roman Catholic, and his constant companion was a foxhound. As
soon as the forty days of Lent began, this dog left his master and
came to the house of my informant, some miles distant, where he found
food to his liking, and stayed with him during Lent, at the end of
which he returned to his owner. He must have measured time very
accurately, and has continued the practice for some years.
In the year 1813 some hounds belonging to his late Majesty, George
III., were sold to Mr. Walker, of Mitchell Grove, near Worthing. A few
weeks after their arrival at that place, one couple of them were sent
in a stage-waggon to Dr. Willis, then living near Stamford in
Lincolnshire. The wagon went through London, and from thence to Dr.
Willis's seat. However surprising it may appear, one of these dogs, in
less than a month after he had left the kennel near Windsor, found his
way back to it. It might be supposed that in this length of time all
recollection would have ceased, but such we have seen was not the
case.
The circumstance which happened to the late Duke of Northumberland's
pack proves the foxhound's eagerness after his game. In 1796 the
hounds ran a fox into a very large furze-cover near Alnwick, called
Bunker's Hill, where he was lost in an earth which no one knew of.
Upon the dogs coming to the kennel two couple and a half of the best
of them were missing, and not returning that night, it was thought
they had found a fox, and had gone off by themselves in pursuit of
him. Several men were sent in search of them to all the earths and
crags for twenty miles round, but no tidings could be gained of them.
The course where the fox was lost was then searched, and the earth
discovered, and in digging about two yards deep, one dog was found;
several yards further three more, fast in the ground; and two yards
deeper the fifth was dug up. They were all dead.
It is well known to those who served in the Peninsular War, that the
late Lord Hill kept a pack of foxhounds while he commanded a division
of the army. During a period of repose a fox was unkennelled in the
neighbourhood of Corja, in Spain. The run was severe for the space of
thirty minutes, when the fox, being sharply pressed by the leading
hounds, leaped down a precipice of sixty yards perpendicular. Seven
couple of the hounds immediately dashed after him, six couple of which
were killed on the spot. The remainder of the pack (twenty-two couple)
would probably have shared the same fate, had not the most forward
riders arrived in time to flog them off, which they did with
difficulty, being scarcely able to restrain their impetuosity. The fox
was found at the bottom, and covered with the bodies of the hounds.
I might have hesitated to mention the following fact, had it not been
witnessed by some well-known sportsmen of the present day.
During a severe chase, and towards the termination of it, when the fox
was in view, another fox was seen, to the astonishment of the forward
riders, running in the middle of the pack of hounds, perfectly
unnoticed by them. It is supposed that the dogs ran over this fox,
who, finding himself in the midst of them, probably thought it the
safest and wisest plan he could pursue to continue with them till he
had an opportunity of making his escape.
In relating anecdotes of foxhounds it is almost unavoidable not to
mention fox-hunters, and we know not how we can give to our readers a
better notion of the stirring spirit and devotion to their sport,
distinguishing them beyond all other sportsmen, than by offering some
extracts from the pen of the late Colonel Cook, a master of hounds,
beloved by all who knew him, and venerated by those who hunted with
him.
Hounds will not work through difficulties, nor will they exert
themselves in that killing sort of manner when they are out of blood.
If after all you should, owing to ill-luck and bad weather, be in want
of it, the best way is to leave an earth open in a country where you
can spare a fox, and where you can without much trouble dig him, give
him to the hounds on the earth, and go home. But whatever you do,
never turn out a bag-fox; it is injurious to your hounds, and makes
them wild and unsteady: besides, nothing is more despicable, or held
in greater contempt by real sportsmen, than the practice of hunting
bag-foxes. It encourages a set of rascals to steal from other hunts;
therefore keep in mind, that if there were no receivers there would be
no thieves. What chiefly contributes to make fox-hunting so very far
superior to other sports is the wildness of the animal you hunt, and
the difficulty in catching him. It is rather extraordinary, but
nevertheless a well-known fact, that a pack of hounds, which are in
sport and blood, will not eat a bag-fox. I remember hearing an
anecdote (when I was in Shropshire many years ago) of the late Lord
Stamford's hounds, which I will relate to you as I heard it. Lord
Forester, and his brother, Mr. Frank Forester, then boys, were at
their uncle's for the holidays. A farmer came to inform them a fox had
just been seen in a tree. All the nets about the premises were
collected, and the fox was caught; but the Squire of Wiley, a
sportsman himself, and a strict preserver of foxes, sent the fox
immediately to Lord Stamford by one of his tenants, that he might be
informed of the real circumstance. The next day the hounds were out,
and also the Squire's tenant; they had drawn some time without
finding, when the farmer reminded his Lordship of the fox caught. 'Do
you think,' said he, 'I will allow my hounds to hunt a bag-fox? I
should never be forgiven by my huntsman!' At last, after drawing
several coverts without finding, his Lordship gave his consent (but it
was to be kept a great secret), and the bag was to be touched upon the
ground in a line for a covert they were going to draw, to have the
appearance of a disturbed fox, and the fox to be turned down in it.
On going to covert, a favourite hound, called Partner, feathered on
the scent. The huntsman exclaimed in ecstacy, 'Old Partner touches on
him; we shall certainly find in the next covert.' They found the
bag-fox, and had a tolerable run; but when they killed him, not a
hound would eat him! 'Now, Sir,' said his lordship to the farmer, 'you
have deceived the huntsman and the field, but you cannot deceive my
hounds.'
Next to turning out bag-men, lifting of hounds is the most
prejudicial. They should seldom be taken 'off their noses,' nothing is
gained by it in the end; hounds that are seldom lifted will kill more
foxes in the course of a season than those that frequently are. Some
years ago, when hunting with the Duke of Grafton's hounds in Suffolk,
they came to a check all in a moment, at a barn near some cross-roads;
they were left alone, and made a fling of themselves, in a perfect
circle, without hitting the scent; many gentlemen exclaimed, 'It is
all over now, Tom; the only chance you have is to make _a wide cast_.'
'No,' answered the huntsman, 'if the fox is not in that barn, my
hounds ought to be hung.'
Dick Foster, the whipper-in, now huntsman to Mr. Villebois (and a very
good one he is), was ordered to dismount and see if he could discover
the fox; he returned and said he was _not_ there.' Tom Rose still was
positive; at last he was viewed on a beam in the barn, and they killed
him, after a further run of about a mile. I mention this trivial
circumstance to show you clearly, that if the hounds had been hurried
up either of the roads on a wide cast, made by an ignorant huntsman,
the fox would inevitably have been lost.
Were I to have some sporting friends coming to see my hounds in the
field, I should prefer going away _close at him_ for twenty minutes,
then a short check, to bring the hounds to a hunting scent, and a
quick thing at last, and run into him, in order that my friends might
be convinced the hounds could _hunt_ as well as run; for of this I am
certain, if they cannot do _both_, they merit not the name of
foxhounds.
[Illustration: HEAD OF A FAVORITE FOX-HOUND.]
[Illustration: HOUNDS IN A BATH.]
[Illustration: THE BEAGLE.]