KENNEL NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, 29 January 1902, Page 42

KENNEL NOTES.

BY TE KURIAROHA.

(All communications should be addressed to the Kennel Editor.)

When Messrs Andrew and Rogen established their kennel of collies, which lias been so successful in Australian and New Zealand shows, they imported a sire t\v the famous English winner, Great Gun. Talking of this dog, we note that one of the attractions on the collie benches at Cambridge show was the reappearance of Great Gun. He is a marvellous laster, and carries one of the heaviest coats seen for a long time. He is still the same showy dog he was when he gained such a name in that fancy. Guite recently he sired a litter of no fewer than fifteen healthy puppies, proving that there is plenty of life in the old dog yet. * * * * '*

Of late years there has been considerable variance of opinion in Australia regarding the type of the present day Fox Terrier, and many have been the discussions on the point. Some judges and breeders favour the old style of terrier with the strong terrier character, whilst others go for the racy type, perhaps not so strong in varmint character. In England there is also a diversity of opinion, and the two schools have go "up” and “down” at shows according to the judges who were selected. At the recent Kennel Club show in England, Mr. Shirley, one of the old school of judges, was appointed for Wire-Haired Fox Terriers, and lie cast a bombshell in the camp of the breeders who favour the leggy type, and down went their champions. Some interesting matter is supplied by the "Stockkeeper” on the subject in the latest issue. That up to date journal lias sided with the judge, and applauds him for sticking to one type right through the show. That journal says: The great event of the Fox Terrier world is come and gone, and the challenge cups have gone to new destinations, and now adorn sideboards that have never before been adorned by those trophies, the possession of which is the acme of a Fox Terrier man’s ambition. The show always promised to be a sensational one. The originally appointed judge for smooths, Mr. Tliorold, though general confidence was expressed in his ability was now to judging work, at least at such an important show, but the ap pointment of Mr. S. E. Sliirlev, the doven of the kennel world, for' the Wire Hairs, was almost universally adversely criticised. The older hands know the past chairman of the Kennel Club as a good, sound judge of almost anything on four legs, but they feared that an experience gamed in the "long ago” and a knowledge certainly not kept up to date with modern developments, would be the origin of .awards that would not "go down with the Wire Haired men of the day. As f ftr as Mr. Tliorold was concerned, the Mar Office stepped in and prevented that gallant officer from fulmll?g i hl 'l engagement, and a most efiicient substitute was found in Mr. W m lm iu" iU'lged very well indeed. \r 0t am we niay say at once cenLr? Ir i S f h ii ley s a "' a rds were not accepted, but they were made according to his lights, and there was a consistency about them after all that carried us back to the (lays of Birch, Spike and a Muir of that ilk, now long numbered with the past when a cloddy dog, with a keen head, varmint expression, and a hard coat, was what was wanted in a Wire Haired Terrier.

HOUNDS AND HUNTING 100 YEARS AGO.

r a , ble am °nnt of information ,, ay , be Picked up on these subjects from , l eS ° f t le s l )ort ing magazines of turv I)art . oj the seventeenth cenchaso arhC 9 Upou the f, °S s of the keener”? IL * • W - nter . in the “StockrmPi? \ 1 • opinion is expressed that ised h b °- first d °g that wa's utilso small as m packs, and that it was Chasiner ti/i to useless except for on foot * TheT a,ld Was always followed in • i rh ° harner ,s said to be longer beanie hut -! ittlo taller than the i ® , ”, still it is referred to as a hound to be followed on foot, which is

by no means the case with the i. of the present day, most of wMm. “***••• fast as foxhounds. The otSr ar * M declared to be a cross betSSttK, * rier and the large, rough terrio? ably the Bedlington or the mont, both of which are believed A 6, selections from the same stock t 0 The foxhound, as far as I can find K, definitely described, except in tWf S i, les * ing lines, which occur after-a d« 0 -*" tion of the prices paid for some Colonel Thornton’s noted foxhounL h - 6 My hounds are bred out of Spartan v’T soflued and fanded, and their head nd * hung with ears that sweep awav morning dew, crook-kneed, and* j 1 lapped like Thessalian bulls.” T a.*’ know what “fanded” means but° n °* tainly the description of the iong- ea w new-lapped, flewed, and crook-//* hounds of those days do not coincidela? the foxhounds of the present era some at least of the former were Wm esteemed we can gather from the count of the sale of Colonel pack at Tattersall’s iu the year -179? Many changed hands at £SO to' £loo head, oue bitch named Merlin, on whn there was offered a challenge for loom guineas to run her against any 0 C hound of her year fave miles over market course, was knocked down to purchaser at 230 guineas, after which several others were sold at 50, 60 and 7n guineas each. The magazines ’contain many interesting accounts of some pt traordinary long and arduous runs and somewhat singularly they are chiefly 0T , the parts of the country' with which I am very familiar, while in three cases £* names of the masters of the packs anH also the present representatives of their families I am acquainted with.

In the same year, 1795, a dog f ox turned out near Howie, on the London ?. Chester road, before the hounds of th? Bey-/- Pigott, of Edgmond, and was killed beyond Ec-cleshall after a sevlw run without a check of an hour and fift? Ont of forty sportsmen started with the hounds, Mr Pigott 3 his two sons, the huntsmen, and 2 other horsemen were the only ones in the death. '' *

The account of a run with the hounds ? f ¥. r - J - Hi ll (one of the Hawkstone family) and Mr. Roberts, m the year 17<p. however, describes a much more severe and prolonged one. Hounds found on the Tremlow Moor, near Peerslieath, and after running near to Lord Kilmurrav’s (Shavmgton) and Sir Robert Cotton’s (Combermere), turned to the left by Whitchurch, and on to Iscord, in Flintshire, then to Malpas and to Carden, the res? deuce of that old sportsman Mr. Jebb through Bolsworth Park, over Pechforton Hills, and was killed under Beeston Castle. “The ground they went over was at least sixty miles.” Upwards of thirty horsemen set off with the hounds, but only six were in at the death. A uni from near Tukesbury seems to I have been quite as arduous as the latter, l as it is said that the fox (also a bagone) crossed the River Severn twice, and ran a distance computed at fifty miles, the chase lasting six hours and a-half, and being finally abandoned by the hunt. The tales certainly seem tall ones, but the line in each case is minutely described, and speaking about these runs only yesterday to the M.F.H. of one of the very fastest packs of foxhounds in England (the pack of the late Empress of Austria elected to hunt with), he made the remark that in olden days hunting wa3 merely pottering along, and that it is not the distance so much as the pace that , kills.

The crook-kneed, lieavily-fiewed. and long-eared hounds, probably of bloodhound or Old Talbot type, were most likely slow hunters, but could keep steadily upon the line of their game, hence the miles they could travel, and the time it took these sleutlihounds to come up with it.