ll-known huntsman, and it may serve in
some measure to account for the following instance of undeviating
perseverance in a foxhound, related by Mr. Daniel in his Supplement to
his "Rural Sports."

The circumstance took place in the year 1808, in the counties of
Inverness and Perth, and perhaps surpasses any length of pursuit known
in the annals of hunting. On the 8th of June in that year, a fox and
hound were seen near Dunkeld in Perthshire, on the high road,
proceeding at a slow trotting pace. The dog was about fifty yards
behind the fox, and each was so fatigued as not to gain on the other.
A countryman very easily caught the fox, and both it and the dog were
taken to a gentleman's house in the neighbourhood, where the fox died.
It was afterwards ascertained that the hound belonged to the Duke of
Gordon, and that the fox was started on the morning of the 4th of
June, on the top of those hills called Monaliadh, which separate
Badenoch from Fort Augustus. From this it appeared that the chase
lasted four days, and that the distance traversed from the place where
the fox was unkennelled to the spot where it was caught, without
making any allowances for doubles, crosses, &c., and as the crow
flies, exceeded seventy miles.

It is a curious fact, that if a foxhound is taken for the first time
into a new and strange country, and he is lost, when he returns to his
kennel he does so across fields where he had never been before, and
not by roads along which he had been taken out. A gentleman who kept
foxhounds had an opportunity of observing this. His house and kennel
were on the banks of a river, and a new hound accompanied the pack,
which went across a bridge near the kennel. He was lost, and came back
over the fields direct upon the kennel, and howled when he arrived on
the banks of the river. We know but little of the peculiar instinct
which thus enables dogs to find their way across a strange country.

Let me here give an anecdote that was communicated to me by the
brother of the gentleman to whom it occurred. This gentleman was a
rigid Roman Catholic, and his constant companion was a foxhound. As
soon as the forty days of Lent began, this dog left his master and
came to the house of my informant, some miles distant, where he found
food to his liking, and stayed with him during Lent, at the end of
which he returned to his owner. He must have measured time very
accurately, and has continued the practice for some years.