"Although I am of course keen to breed a Peterborough winner, still my great ambition is to own a pack that will hunt and drive. I am not in favour of the slow, sure and persevering type of hound, for though these may hunt and constantly kill their hare, they will by giving her time, allow her to run round and round in the country she knows, instead of driving her out of her beaten track. I like hounds to get away on the back of their quarry and if they drive her into a strange country she will be almost certain to go straight. If hounds do this and possess plenty of drive without flashiness, they will often make a good scent, when otherwise they would find an indifferent one."
As an apt commentary on the remarks of this very successful M.H., we may note that Mrs. Pryse-Rice's hounds had some really extraordinary runs last season.[3] For instance early in December they found a hare in the heather, and after running her down wind for nearly two miles, they turned and went at a pace that tried their followers for a five-mile point dead up wind, killing her in forty-five minutes from the start. In the same month another mountain hare gave them a good five-mile point, and on January 12th the hounds were two hours and forty-five minutes going at a good pace, and travelling over a great extent of country, and they did not reach kennels after this, their best run of the season, till 7.40 p.m.
[3] 1897-98.
It is clear, therefore, that Mrs. Pryse-Rice is to be counted among those who have attained more or less to the ideal they have set before them in breeding, and she has beside scored high honours at Peterborough. The noted Harrier Stud-book bitch, Aldenham Restless, a veteran of pure foxhound blood, by the Whaddon Chase Tarquin—Oakley Sarah, is now in the Llandovery Kennels. This bitch won the Champion Cup at Peterborough in 1893, and three years later took the Silver Cup for the best brood bitch,[4] after which she became the property of Mrs. Pryse-Rice.
[4] I must express my regret that it has not been found possible to reproduce the photograph of this famous hound, though it was most kindly sent me by Mrs. Pryse-Rice.—Editor.
The stock of Restless are well to the fore, for last year—1897—no fewer than nine of her descendants were winners at the Peterborough Show.
Rigby, a fine upstanding hound, of pure harrier blood, by Eamont Barrister—their Russet was second for the Champion Cup in 1897, and as he was unentered and was shown against old dog-hounds, this was a remarkably good performance.
To quote once more from Mrs. Pryse-Rice's own words: "We have never," she says, "had a big count of hares killed. We—my husband acts as my first whip and A. Mandeville is K.H. and second whip—are quite content to come home having accounted for one hunted hare, or when we kill a brace in this way, it is quite a red-letter day for us. I do not see any fun in either chopping them, or in killing three or four hares that only run a few fields, though of course this does make up the count."
Touching on the subject of the introduction of the foxhound cross with harriers, Mrs. Pryse-Rice says that she is "in favour of an infusion of foxhound blood, in moderation, into the harrier kennel."