LETTER III

I begin this Letter with assuring you that I have done with the kennel: without doubt, you will think I had need. If I have made even the name frightful to you, comfort yourself with the thoughts that it will not appear again.

Your criticism on my switches I think unjust. You tell me, that self-defence would of course make you take that precaution. Do you always walk with a whip in your hand? —or do you think that a walking-stick, which may be a good thing to knock a dog on the head with, would be equally proper to correct him, should he be too familiar? You forget, however, to put a better substitute in the room of them.

You desire to know what kind of hound I would recommend. As you mention not for any particular chase, or country, I understand you generally; and shall answer, that I most approve of hounds of the middle size. I believe all animals of that description are strongest, and best able to endure fatigue. In the height, as well as the colour of hounds, most sportsmen have their prejudices; but in their shape, at least, I think they must all agree. I know sportsmen who boldly affirm, that a small hound will oftentimes beat a large one; that he will climb hills better, and go through cover quicker;—whilst others are not less ready to assert, that a large hound will make his way in any country; will get better through the dirt than a small one; and that no fence, however high, can stop him. You have now three opinions; and I advise you to adopt that which suits your country best. There is, however, a certain size, best adapted for business; which I take to be that between the two extremes; and I will venture to say, that such hounds will not suffer themselves to be disgraced in any country. Somerville, I find, is of the same opinion.

I perfectly agree with you, that, to look well, they should be all nearly of a size; and I even think that they should all look of the same family.

If handsome withal, they are then perfect. With regard to their being sizeable, what Somerville says is so much in your way, that I shall send it to you.

There are necessary points in the shape of a hound, which ought always to be attended to by a sportsman; for, if he be not of a perfect symmetry, he will neither run fast, nor bear much work: he has much to undergo, and should have strength proportioned to it. Let his legs be straight as arrows; his feet round, and not too large; his shoulders back; his breast rather wide than narrow; his chest deep; his back broad; his head small, his neck thin; his tail thick and brushy: if he carry it well, so much the better. This last point, however trifling it may appear to you, gave rise to a very odd question. A gentleman (not much acquainted with hounds), as we were hunting together the other day, said: “I observe, Sir, that some of your dogs’ tails stand up, and some hang down; pray, which do you reckon the best hounds?” Such young hounds as are out at the elbows, and such as are weak from the knee to the foot, should never be taken into the pack.

I find that I have mentioned a small head, as one of the necessary requisites of a hound; but you will understand it as relative to beauty only; for, as to goodness, I believe large-headed hounds are in no wise inferior. Somerville, in his description of a perfect hound, makes no mention of the head, leaving the size of it to Phidias to determine; he, therefore, must have thought it of little consequence. I send you his words.

The colour I think of little moment; and am of opinion with our friend Foote, respecting his negro friend that a good dog, like a good candidate, cannot be of a bad colour.

Men are too apt to be prejudiced by the sort of hound which they themselves have been most accustomed to. Those who have been used to the sharp-nosed fox-hound, will hardly allow a large-headed hound to be a fox-hound; yet they both equally are: speed and beauty are the chief excellences of the one; while stoutness, and tenderness of nose, in hunting,¹ are characteristic of the other. I could tell you, that I have seen very good sport with very unhandsome packs, consisting of hounds of various sizes, differing from one another as much in shape and look as in their colour; nor could there be traced the least sign of consanguinity amongst them. Considered separately, the hounds were good; as a pack of hounds, they were not to be commended; nor would you be satisfied with anything that looked so very incomplete. You will find nothing so essential to your sport, as that your hounds should run well together; nor can this end be better attained, than by confining yourself, as near as you can, to those of the same sort, size, and shape.

A great excellence in a pack of hounds, is the head they carry; and that pack may be said to go the fastest, that can run ten miles the soonest; notwithstanding the hounds, separately, may not run so fast as many others.² A pack of hounds, considered in a collective body, go fast, in proportion to the excellence of their noses, and the head they carry; as that traveller generally gets soonest to his journey’s end who stops least upon the road. Some hounds that I have hunted with, would creep all through the same hole, though they might have leapt the hedge, and would follow one another in a string, as true as a team of cart-horses. I had rather see them, like the horses of the sun, all a-breast.

A friend of mine killed thirty-seven brace of foxes in one season: twenty-nine of the foxes were killed without any intermission. I must tell you, at the same time, that they were killed with hounds bred from a pack of harriers; nor had they, I believe, a single skirter belonging to them. There is a pack now in my neighbourhood, of all sorts and sizes, which seldom miss a fox; when they run, there is a long string of them, and every fault is hit off by an old southern hound. However, out of the last eighteen foxes that they hunted, they killed seventeen; and I have no doubt, that, as they become more complete, more foxes will escape from them. Packs which are composed of hounds of various kinds, seldom run well together; nor do their tongues harmonize; yet they generally, I think, kill most foxes: but unless I like their style of killing them, whatever may be their success, I cannot be completely satisfied. I once asked the famous Will Crane, how his hounds behaved. “Very well, Sir,” he replied: “they never come to a fault but they spread like a sky-rocket.” Thus it should always be.

A famous sportsman asked a gentleman what he thought of his hounds. “Your pack is composed, Sir,” said he, “of dogs which any other man would hang: they are all skirters.” This was taken as a compliment. However, think not that I recommend it to you as such; for, though I am a great advocate for style in the killing of a fox, I never forgive a professed skirter: where game is in plenty, they are always changing, and are the loss of more foxes than they kill.

You ask me, how many hounds you ought to keep? It is a question not easy to answer: from twenty to thirty couple are as many, I think, as you should ever take into the field.³ The propriety of any number must depend upon the strength of your pack, and the country in which you are to hunt: the quantity of hounds necessary to furnish that number for a whole season, must also depend on the country where you hunt; as some countries lame hounds more than others. The taking out too many hounds, Mr. Somerville very properly calls an useless incumbrance. It is not so material what the number is, as it is that all your hounds should be steady, and as nearly as possible of equal speed.

When packs are very large, the hounds are seldom sufficiently hunted to be good. Few people choose to hunt every day; and, if they did, it is not likely that the weather in winter would give them leave. You would always be obliged, therefore, either to take out a very large pack, or a great number of hounds must be left behind: in the first case, too many hounds in the field would probably spoil your sport; in the second, hounds that remain long without work, always get out of wind, and oftentimes become riotous. About forty couple, I think, will best answer your purpose. Forty couple of hunting hounds will enable you to hunt three, or even four, times in a week; and, I will venture to say, will kill more foxes than a greater number. Hounds, to be good, must be kept constantly hunted; and if I should hereafter say, a fox-hound should be above his work, it will not be a young fox-hound that I shall mean; for he should seldom be left at home, as long as he is able to hunt: the old and lame, and such as are low in flesh, you should leave; and such as you are sure idleness cannot spoil.

It is a great fault to keep too many old hounds. If you choose that your hounds should run well together, you should not continue any, longer than five or six seasons; though there is no saying, with certainty, what number of seasons a hound will last. Like us, some of them have better constitutions than others, and consequently will bear more work; and the duration of all bodies depends as much on the usage that they meet with, as on the materials of which they are made.

You ask, whether you had not better buy a complete pack at once, than be at the trouble of breeding one? Certainly you had, if such an opportunity should offer. It sometimes happens, that hounds are to be bought for less money than you could breed them. The gentleman to whom my house formerly belonged, had a most famous pack of fox-hounds. His goods, &c., were appraised and sold; which, when the appraiser had done, he was put in mind of the hounds. “Well, gentlemen,” said he, “what shall I appraise them at? A shilling a-piece?” “Oh, it is too little!” “Is it so?” said the appraiser—“why, it is more than I would give for them, I assure you.”

Hounds are not bought so cheap at Tattersall’s.

¹Il parait que la finesse de l’odorat, dans les chiens, dépend de la grosseur plus que de la longueur du museau.—buffon.

²[The most essential thing in a pack of hounds is the head they carry.]

[³From fifteen to twenty couple are quite enough, and more than that number do harm rather than good.]