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The eyes should be dark and not prominent. The ears should be set on low, of good length and not prominent.

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NECK. Should be strong, of good length, and muscular; set on sloping shoulders.

BODY.-Should be massive, of good length and well ribbed up, any weakness or slackness of loin being a bad fault. The chest should be large and very deep; the sternum prominent.

FORE LEGS. Should be short and very powerful, very heavy in bone, and either nearly straight or half-crooked. The elbows should lie against

the sides of the chest, and should not turn out.

HINDQUARTERS.-Should be powerful and muscular; the hind legs should be rather longer than the fore legs, and well bent at the stifles. STERN. Of moderate length, and carried gaily. It should be set on high.

COAT.—Is an extremely important point. It should be profuse, thick and harsh to the touch, with a dense undercoat. The coat may be wavy.

COLOUR.-Any recognised hound-colour.

WEIGHT.-Dogs, 40-45 lbs. ; bitches, rather less. GENERAL APPEARANCE.-The rough basset should appear a very powerful hound for his size, and on short strong legs. The feet should be thick, well-padded, and not open. Body massive and good length, without slackness of loin. The expression should be kindly and intelligent. Any unsoundness should disqualify the hound.

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For my illustrations I have been fortunate in obtaining three honnds from Mrs. Tottie's famous kennels. Ch. Louis le Beau, by Ch. Paris ex Gravity, was born in 1891, and during his phenomenal career won fifteen championships, and other prizes innumerable. The vignette of the head of Maid Marion, a daughter of Ch. Forester, indicates the most beautiful type of basset countenance and expression. In rough bassets Ch. Tambour, the winner of nine championships, represents a pillar of the stud; and the second illustration, Ch. Puritan and Ch. Priscilla (from an oilpainting by Mr. B. Fee), are two of his progeny, and belong to Mr. H. H. Taylor. These five famous hounds represent the crême de la crême of basset-hound blood in England, and were bred by Mrs. Tottie.

THE BEAGLE

THE descent of the beagle has been traced to the time of the Plantagenets by writers who have sought to ally it with the brach, brache, or bratche, and some of its admirers claim for it the honour of being the oldest of our modern hunting hounds. Without admitting the Plantagenet antiquity we may accept a Tudor one, for it is certain the little hound was a well known variety in the days of Queen Elizabeth, who kept a pack of "singing" beagles, as they were called, made up of such diminutive component parts that it was asserted a specimen could be carried in a lady's gauntlet. This oft-quoted fact has been condemned as an exaggeration by some critics of the exact, and a casual glance at the costumed figure of the Virgin Queen, seated on horseback, which may be seen at the Tower of London, does not lend any air of authority to the statement; nor, again, do any of the costumes in which she is depicted in her four oil portraits in the National Gallery. Notwithstanding, when we consider the cut of some species of medieval gloves I think we may allow the physical possibility of such a depository for a dwarf hound, and I doubt not that many modern toy-dogs could have fitted comfortably into many ancient gauntlets.

Queen Elizabeth was not the only monarch to patronise the merry little hound. William of Orange,

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who introduced the pug into England, also kept a pack, and there is a record of a hunt at the Duke of Portland's seat, which was attended by four hundred mounted gentlemen. A century and a quarter later another English king-George the Fourth-patronised beagles, and hunted with them on the downs at Brighton, and in one of his portraits he is painted with his pack around him. History does not tell us whether he rode straight and hard, but we know His Majesty was a

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BEAGLE (1850).

famous whip, and held the record for some time for the fastest drive between London and Brighton. And of his pack it is recorded that they could cover the ground at a surprising pace, and required a good horse to keep up with them. It is also a fact, I believe, that the late Prince Consort kept a pack of very small pure white rabbit beagles.

This reads rather strangely in these modern days, when the very name of a beagle pack is associated solely with a field on foot. Thus in the list of packs of hounds catalogued under the generic name of

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