With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee’d and dew-lapp’d, like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
Judge when you hear.
Of the powers of scent possessed by the Staghound, the following is a notable example:—
“Lord Oxford reduced four Stags to so perfect a degree of submission, that, in his short excursions, he used to drive them in a phaeton made for the purpose. He was one day exercising his singular and beautiful steeds in the neighbourhood of Newmarket, when their ears were saluted with the unwelcome cry of a pack of Hounds, which, crossing the road in their rear, had caught the scent, and leaving their original object of pursuit, were now in rapid chase of the frightened Stags. In vain his grooms exerted themselves to the utmost; the terrified animals bounded away with the swiftness of lightning, and entered Newmarket at full speed. They made immediately for the Ram Inn, to which his lordship was in the habit of driving, and, having fortunately entered the yard without any accident, the stable-keepers huddled his lordship, the phaeton, and the Deer, into a large barn, just in time to save them from the Hounds, who came into the yard in full cry a few seconds afterwards.”