The Sportsman's Cabinet

'»^m 4 ^^y-^l!^ <» ( #^ m# /^ —vTy^A"/^^?' \Jri I y/y-e^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Pittsburgh Library System http://wvvw.archive.org/details/sportsmanscabine02inlond J:^ l^rintedjvr t/it_^J^r(>pnftojy^ ) l80JK SPORTSMAN'S CABINET i OR, A CORRECT DELINEATION OF THE VARIOUS DOGS USED IN THE SPORTS OF THE FIELD: INCLUDING THE CANINE RACE IN GENERAL. CONSISTING OF 9i g>enes of €nsta\jmss OF EVERY DISTINCT BREED, FROM ORIGINAL PAINTINGS, TAKEN FROM LIFE. Interspersed with beaiitifiil Vignettes, engraved on Wood, ILLUSTRATED BY A COMPREHENSIVE, HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTION OF THE DIFFERENT SPECIES j WITH A REVIEW OF THE VARIOUS DISEASES TO WHICH THEY ARE SUBJECT, AND THE MOST APPROVED AND EFFICACIOUS MODES OF TREATMENT AND CURE. TO WHICH IS ADDED, A SCIENTinC DISQDISITION UPON THE DISTEMPER, CANINE MADNESS, and the HYDROPHOBIA. BY A VETERAN SPORTSMAN. LONDON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETORS, BY J. CUNDEE, IVYLANE, PATERNOSTER-ROW; SOLD BY I. HUEST, PAIERNOSTER-EOW ; T. OSTELL, AVE-MABIi-LANE ; AND CHAPPLE, PALL-MALL. 1804. THE SPORTSMAN'S CABINET. STAG - HOUND. X HE animal passing under this particular denomination, is the largest and most powerful of all the different sizes and gradations so generally known by the sporting and distinguished appellation of hounds. As he is the highest in esti- mation, so is he the most majestic and commanding in his aspect ; having a countenance of expressive dignity, so blended with every trait of instinctive mildness, that it forcibly impresses upon the reflecting mind a strong idea of gentle and attracting solicitation. In respect to the origin of this distinct part of the species, it has been asserted, by naturalists of the first celebrity, and whose opinions are the most to be relied on, that the hound, harrier, turnspit, water-dog, and spaniel, may be considered as originally of the same race ; the figure, and nearly the instinctive properties of these being mostly the same, as they differ only in the length of their legs and the size of their ears, which are, however, in all of them long, soft, and pendulous. The hound and harrier are, with a great degree of reason, conceived to have been natives of Britain, France, and Germany, as they have been perceived to degenerate when transported to warmer climates. As most of the matter respecting the origin of the different races, sizes, and propensities of the various kinds of dogs, must ever continue to rest upon con- jecture, it is by no means unfair to conclude, that the large, strong, bony hound, passing under the common acceptation of the term stag-hound, was the VOL. II. B primeval primeval stock from which every collateral branch of that particular race has jince descended ; with such deviations only as were occasioned by the crosses and improvements of those who, during so many centuries, were disposed to vary the breed and size, in proportion to the country in which they Mere to hunt, or the sort of game they were intended to pursue. Admitting this hypo- thesis to be the fact, no farther doubt, or contention, can arise respecting the lineage of hounds on account of a variation in size ; as it is universally known, that can be regulated by the piactical judgment of the breeder, who can, by the necessary and experienced crosses, either enlarge, or diminish the stature of his pack in the course of three or four canine generations. The stag-hounds now in use for the pursuit of that game only, at least in the establishment of the royal chase, was originally an improved cross between the English, deep-tougued, southern, and the fleeter grafted old fox-hound ; upon the basis of what was formerly called, and better known by the appellation of blood-hounds. The race passing under this denomination had, in less en- lightened times, a degree of fabulous infallibility ascribed to them of pursuing, taking, and seizing murderers, robbers, or depredators of whatever description, when they could be procured, and laid on (within a given time) upon the scent, or footsteps of the particular object they were intended to pursue ; and of their possessing this peculiar property there is not the least doubt, Mhen the experience of ages, transmitted to us by our predecessors, as well as our own obser- vations, have afforded innumerable and incontrovertible proofs, that hounds of every kind, great or small, may be decisively taught (or in other words broke in) to carry on any particular scent when forcibly and feelingly convinced they are to hunt no other. Of this we have ample and demonstrative proof every year we live, for it is frequently seen, and is universally known to every sportsman of experience, that a pack, who, for years past, has hunted fallow-deer in the possession of one, shall become most complete and perfect harriers in the establishment of another. In respect to the received opinion of what were formerly called blood-hounds, the fact is simply this ; the original stock of the breed so termed (which may be remembered within the present generation by many now living) exceeded in size, weight, substance, strength, and courage, every other kind of hound in ex- istence, thereby acquiring and possessing a kind of sagacious, or serious solem- nity admirably calculated to impress the necessitous with fear, naturally tending to to keep them in awe. These hounds destined to only one particular species of pursuit were, of course, rendered entire strangers to every other ; they were never brought into the chase, or employed in the sports of the field, but sup- ported and preserved (as a constable, or thief- taker of the present day,) for the purposes of pursuit and detection, whenever they could be laid with expedition upon the scent or footsteps of the offender it was thought necessary or expe- dient to pursue. At the time blood-hounds were in use, deer-stealing was so prevalent and incessant, the forest and park-keepers, in most parts of the kingdom, were perpetually engaged in a kind of eternal watching and nocturnal warfare ; these hounds were then so regularly trained and accustomed to the practice, that when once laid upon the scent, they so closely and invariably ad- hered to it, that however long, tedious, and difficult the pursuit might be, detection was certain and inevitable : from this persevering instinct and infallibility they acquired the name so long retained, and an offending criminal, in the first half of the last century, was absolutely conceived to be certainly taken, and half convicted, the moment a hound of this description. could be obtained. As there is no clue by which can be ascertained the precise period when the sports of the field (but more particularly the chase) began to assume the first feature of their present improvement ; it can only be collected from the best authorities, that the jurisprudence of the Roman empire, which was accommo- dated to the manners of the earliest ages, established it as a law, that as the na- tural right of such things as have no proprietor belongs to their first possessor, so all kinds of wild beasts, birds, and fishes were the property of those who could first obtain them. But the northern barbarians, who over-ran the Roman empire, entertaining a strong relish for this rude amusement, and being now pos- sessed of more easy means of subsistence from the lands they had conquered, their leaders and chiefs b^gan to claim, and appropriate the sole right of hunting to themselves, and instead of considering, or continuing it longer a right of nature, they stamped it with the privilege of royalty. At that precise era when the Saxon kings had established themselves into aa heptarchy, the chases were reserved by each sovereign for his own particular di- version ; the arts of war, and the enjoyment of the chase, in those uncivilized ages, constituted the only employments of the great; their active, but unculti- vated minds, were susceptible of no pleasures but such as were of a violent kind ; these seeming peculiarly adapted as exercise for their bodies, and a pre- ventative ; 6 ventativc to reflection. But as the lands so appropriated to the sole use of the Saxon kings were only those laying waste, and not under cultivation, no injury to individuals was sustained. The case, however, was totally reversed when the Normans got possession of the throne ; for the unrestrained and invincible passion for hunting was then carried to the utmost excess, and every civil right was individually annihilated and involved in one universal ruin. Even in that age of ignorance and superstition, the ardour for hunting was much stronger than the fervour of religion ; the village communities, nay, even the most sa- cred edifices, were destroyed, and turned into one extensive waste, in order to make room for pleasures predominating over every humane and philanthropic consideration. Sanguinary laws were at this time introduced for the preserva- tion of the game, and in those reigns it was considered less criminal to be guiltj' of an unpremeditated murder than to wilfully destroy a beast of chase. This system of tyranny was persevered in duiing the time the Norman line filled the throne; but when the Saxon line was restored in Henry the Second, the impo- litic rigour of the Forest-laws was materially meliorated. The barons also, for a considerable time, imitated not only the rapid encroachments, but also the pleasurable of their amusements monarchs ; yet, when property began to be more equally distributed (through the introduction of arts and the progress of industry), these hunting districts became more limited ; and as tillage and hus- bandry increased, beasts of chase were obliged to give way to those which man- kind, for the support of society, had found it indispensably necessary to take more immediately under their protection.

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