MANY writers have more or less casually alluded to Welsh hounds, but their information does not go beyond telling us that they resemble foxhounds in all but coat, which in the Welsh variety ought to be wiry haired and not quite smooth. And as a fact we know so little, or absolutely nothing, about the origin of the ordinary English foxhound, that it is no wonder we are equally lacking in information concerning the Welsh hounds, whose praises have so often been sung. What the hounds were like which are included in the rules and regulations of Howell the Good, there are no means of knowing; nor, as far as one can discover, is there any book or magazine article which attempts to sketch, even in the merest outline, the history of the Welsh hounds; whilst, equally noteworthy and somewhat odd, no drawing or illustrations of them have hitherto appeared in any book about dogs.

In the hunting treatise of Edmond de Langley,

Duke of York, fourth son of Edward III., mention is made of Kennitis. Now, a rough Welsh rug or cloth was, says Jesse, called a Kennet, and he thinks these Kennitis might have been the Welsh harriers sent by the Prince of Wales to Count d'Evreux.

The earliest Welsh hounds known appear to have been kept at Margam, and were the property of Sir Thomas Mansel, who, records tell, gave them to Mr. Jenkins, of Gelly, and these were more or less rough or wiry-haired. A correspondent, a famous Welsh fox hunter, informs me that these old Gelly hounds were for the most part black and tan in colour, varying in height from 17 to 21 inches ; excelling in legs and feet. Their heads and ears more inclined to the bloodhound type, than do those of the modern strains, having considerable peak, and ears hanging well down and pendulous. Their necks, backs, and loins were good. Their voices were exceptionally fine, one old sportsman likening the music of the Gelly pack when in full cry to the tones of an old church organ. It must not be forgotten, these far-reaching notes were of great importance in hunting this rough and in those days sparsely populated country. The present squire of Gelly still retains some few of the old strain.

There are many packs of hounds in Wales which

are actually only Welsh in name, and much confusion has been caused by the inference conveyed by many writers that all foxhounds and harriers in the Principality are of the old wiry-haired or hardcoated strain. Such is far from being the case, and it is doubtful whether even the hounds of Squire Talbot, which, to the glory of the pure Welsh hounds, are credited with an extraordinary run from Margam to Llanelly, were quite free from "foreign " strain.

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Not very long ago a hunting correspondent of the Field was astonished to find a so-called pack of Welsh hounds the common foxhounds of the shires and elsewhere; and so recently as last year the writer went over to Aldridge's to see a pack of Welsh hounds which had been sent up, from the neighbourhood of Aberystwith, for sale. These, too, were English foxhounds, many of them of fashionable blood, and none of them had an atom of "wirehaired" coat to denote that they were originally descended from the native hound of the Principality. This was Mr. Vaughan Davies' pack.

At the time the Gelly hounds were in their prime, there was another noted Welsh pack kept by the late Squire Jenkins, Lanharran (uncle of the present squire), but they differed greatly from the "Gelly" in colour, for they were mostly white-lemon and white