kept in this country for hunting purposes, still, with the many admirers of the race, there is little fear of the strain being allowed to become of the past.

As already hinted, our bloodhound has, in reality, suffered less from a craze to breed for certain exaggerated features, than some other dogs have done. He is still a fairly powerful and large hound, with great thickness of bone, well sprung ribs and considerable power behind. behind. I rather fancy that, like most large sized dogs, he fails more in his loins, and hind legs, than elsewhere, nor does he, as a rule, carry so much muscle as a foxhound. doubt in head and ears he has much improved since the time he was kept for the public good at the expense of the inhabitants of the Scottish borders.

No

Some of our modern hounds, have been simply extraordinary in what are technically called "head" properties. Perhaps the finest hound in this respect was Captain Clayton's Luath XI., a fawn in colour, a huge specimen of his variety, weighing over 106lb., but unfortunately spoiled by his execrable fore legs and feet. On the contrary, Mrs. Humphries' Don, that once did a considerable amount of winning, excelled in legs and feet, and loins-a plainheaded hound, always much over estimated. Mr. E. Nichols had a dark coloured hound, called Triumph, that excelled in head and ears, and perhaps

there has been no better hound in this respect than Cromwell, owned by Mr. E. Millais, but bred by Mr. W. Nash in 1884, by Nestor-Daisy. The head properties of this hound were so fine that on his death, in 1892, a model was taken of them by Mr. Millais. But here a list cannot be given of all the excellent bloodhounds that have made their appearance of late years, the dog-show catalogues afford a better selection than I could supply here, and the owners of the kennels named above are certainly to be complimented on the progress they have made with the bloodhound, notwithstanding the difficulty to be surmounted in rearing the puppies.

Mr. Edwin Brough, no doubt the most experienced breeder of the present day, believes the modern bloodhound to be much speedier on foot than in the old days of the Mosstroopers, and there are now, in 1892, certainly more really good bloodhounds to be found in this country, than has ever been the case. Perhaps Bono, Bardolph, and Burgundy, from the Scarborough kennels, generally have never been excelled, and now, in 1892, the two latter, as Bono had done earlier on, often win the special awarded to the best dog in the show.

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The pedigree of our present bloodhounds has been well kept during the past generation or so, and their reliability in the Stud Book is undoubted.

The late Mr. J. H. Walsh ("Stonehenge"), in a previous edition of this book, appears to have obtained a prejudice against the temperament and character of the bloodhound, formed evidently by a very savage and determined dog of Grantly Berkeley's, called Druid. Whether modern dog shows have been the means of improving this hound's temper, and making him as amiable and devoted a friend as any other dog, I cannot tell; but, that he

so, no one who has ever kept the variety will doubt. Bring a bloodhound up in the house or stable and use him as a companion, and he will requite you for your trouble. He is gentle and kind, less addicted to fighting than many other big dogs; he is sensible, cleanly, of noble aspect, and in demeanour the aristocrat of hounds.

Of course, there are ill-conditioned dogs of every variety, but the average bloodhound will develop into as good a companion as any other of his race; he may be shy at first, but kindness will improve him in this respect. In hunting, he is slower than the foxhound, but more painstaking than are the members of the fashionable pack. He dwells on the quest a long time, seemingly enjoying the peculiar sensation he may derive through his olfactory organs, and will cast well on his own account. The latter, a faculty that ought not to be lost,

though in many hunting countries, where a good gallop is considered more desirable than observing hound work, the master or huntsman assists the hounds, rather than allows them to assist themselves.

The lovely voice the bloodhound possesses need not be dilated upon by me, and moreover, he has a power of transmitting that "melody" to his offspring to an unusual extent. I fancy that our modern otterhound owes something of his melodious cry to some not very remote crosses with the bloodhound; and if I mistake not, Major Cowan has found his strain of "Druids" useful in his well-known Braes o' Derwent foxhounds.

If asked to recommend a large dog as a companion, I should certainly place the bloodhound very high on the list, possibly on a level with the St. Bernard, and only below the Scottish deerhound. And in one respect he is better even than the latter; he is not nearly so quarrelsome with other dogs. Not very long ago, a bloodhound was running about the busy streets of Brixton daily; he never snarled at a passing cur or terrier, and was the favourite of every little boy and girl in the neighbourhood. Had their parents known that the big black and brown creature their children were petting and stroking on the head was a bloodhound, the

ferocious dog of story books and history, what a scene there would have been.

Sir E. Landseer, the animal painter, thoroughly appreciated the bloodhound, its staid manner, its majestic appearance. He, with Mr. Jacob Bell, kept hounds of his own, and all know how he immortalised them on canvas. His "Sleeping Bloodhound," now in the National Gallery, was a portrait of Mr. Bell's favourite Countess, run over and killed in a stable yard; and it was after her death she was painted forming the subject, "A sleep that has no waking." Grafton, in the popular picture, "Dignity and Impudence" was a bloodhound considered to be of great merit in his day, now he would be regarded as an ordinary specimen.

Mr. Brough, writing in the Century Magazine, about three years ago, goes at considerable length into the training of bloodhounds, which is best done by allowing the hound to hunt the "clean boot," rather than one smeared with blood or anything else. He says:

Hounds work better when entered to one particular scent and kept to that only, Mr. Brough never allows his hounds to hunt anything but the clean boot, but begins to take his pups to exercise on the roads when three or four months old, and a very short time suffices to get them under good command. You can begin scarcely too early to teach pups to hunt the clean boot. For the first few times it is best to let them run some one they know; afterwards it