| Buckhound | |
|---|---|
 The New Forest Buckhounds, 1896 | |
 The Royal Buckhounds, 1875 | |
| Origin | England |
| Breed status | Extinct |
| Dog ( domestic dog ) | |
The Buckhound was a breed of now extinct scent hound from England; they were used to hunt fallow deer in packs.
| Buckhound | |
|---|---|
| The New Forest Buckhounds, 1896 | |
| The Royal Buckhounds, 1875 | |
| Origin | England |
| Breed status | Extinct |
| Dog ( domestic dog ) | |
The Buckhound was a breed of now extinct scent hound from England; they were used to hunt fallow deer in packs.
From the Middle Ages, the hunting of deer in England varied depending on whether the quarry was the large stag or red deer or the smaller buck or fallow deer. [1] The use of different hounds for the hunting of different deer species was known from at least the reign of Henry III (1216–1272), with packs of Staghounds maintained for the hunting of stag, whilst the hunting of the smaller buck was conducted with packs of Buckhounds. [1] [2] By the 15th century, stag hunts and buck hunts had diverged significantly; during a stag hunt, stag were tracked and located using limers and then hunted using the deep-scenting Staghounds, whereas buck hunts were more of a fast-paced par-force hunt, with the hounds hunting by both sight and scent, and emphasis being placed on the pace of the hunt. [1]
Buck hunting held a special place in England during the reign of Edward III (1327–1377) when the Royal Buckhounds pack was established and the title Master of the Buckhounds was allocated to the Brocas family. The English and later British monarchs maintained the Royal Buckhounds until the 20th century. [1] [3] When Queen Anne became too infirm to follow the hounds on horseback, she had paths cut through Windsor Forest so she could follow the hunt in a carriage. [3]
Due to scarcity of deer to hunt, by the time of George III's reign (1760–1820), the Royal Buckhounds was one of the few remaining Buckhound packs in England. [2] Buck hunts became hunts for carted deer. A semi-tame deer was released and hunted by the hounds and accompanying riders, but the hounds were prevented from harming the deer, which was recaptured and returned to its deer park unharmed to be hunted again later. [2] [3]
In 1868 the hounds ran through Wormwood Scrubs and the hunt ended at Paddington Goods Station. The Prince of Wales rode home to Marlborough House wearing his pink coat. Queen Victoria appeared as a spectator at only one meet of the Queen's Hounds in 1874. [4] Until 1878 the Prince of Wales hunted fairly regularly with the Buckhounds. [5] However, there was talk of abolishing the Buckhounds and turning them into a royal fox hunt. Reverend Joseph Stratton spearheaded the humanitarian campaign against the Buckhounds in 1852. He worked tirelessly, walking ten or twenty miles a day, to expose the hunting of the carted deer as a "spurious" sport. [6]
Eventually, in 1901, the pack was dissolved as a cost-saving measure by Edward VII. [3] Buck hunting was subsumed by stag hunting and Buckhounds died out. [1]
Artistic depictions show that the Buckhound's appearance was quite similar to that of the Harrier, a hound used for hare hunting in packs, being noticeably smaller and lighter-framed than the Staghound. [1] Richard Barrett Davis described Buckhounds in this way: "The buck-hound, in the days of George III, was tall, loose and ill put together, with a well formed head and large ears, not rounded: its colour was yellow pie, more in spots than is usual in hounds. Its pace for half an hour was very fast; after the first stop there was little difficulty in keeping up with them." [7]
The Master of the Buckhounds was an officer in the Master of the Horse's department of the British Royal Household. The holder was also His/Her Majesty's Representative at Ascot. The role was to oversee a hunting pack; a buckhound is smaller than a staghound and used for coursing the smaller breeds of deer, especially fallow deer. The position was abolished by the Civil List Act 1901.
Royal hunting, also royal art of hunting, was a hunting practice of the aristocracy throughout the known world in the Middle Ages, from Europe to Far East. While humans hunted wild animals time immemorial, and all classes engaged in hunting as an important source of food and at times the principal source of nutrition. The necessity of hunting was transformed into a stylized pastime of the aristocracy. More than a pastime,l interaction, essential training for war, and a privilege and measurement of nobility. In Europe in the High Middle Ages the practice was widespread.
The Grand Bleu de Gascogne is a breed of hounds of the scenthound type, originating in France and used for hunting in packs. Today's breed is the descendant of a very old type of large hunting dog, and is an important breed in the ancestry of many other hounds.
A Staghound is a breed of scent hound bred for hunting stags.
Deer hunting is hunting deer for meat and sport, an activity which dates back tens of thousands of years. Venison, the name for deer meat, is a nutritious and natural food source of animal protein that can be obtained through deer hunting. There are many different types of deer around the world that are hunted for their meat. For sport, often hunters try to kill deer with the largest and most antlers to score them using inches. There are two different categories of antlers. They are typical and nontypical. They measure tine length, beam length, and beam mass by each tine. They will add all these measurements up to get a score. This score is the score without deductions. Deductions occur when the opposite tine is not the same length as it is opposite. That score is the deducted score.
In the United Kingdom, the term hunting with no qualification generally refers to hunting with hounds, e.g. normally fox hunting, stag (deer) hunting, beagling, or minkhunting, whereas shooting is the shooting of game birds. What is called deer hunting elsewhere is deer stalking. According to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) over a million people a year participate in shooting, including stalking, shooting, hunting, clay shooting and target shooting. Firearm ownership is regulated in the UK by licensing. Provisions exist for those without a Firearm or Shotgun certificate to shoot under the supervision of a certificate holder.
The Kerry Beagle is the only extant scent hound breed native to Ireland.
Mordaunt Fenwick Bisset of Bagborough in Somerset, 22nd Scottish feudal baron of Lessendrum in Aberdeen, Scotland, was a British Conservative Party Member of Parliament and a famous west-country Master of Staghounds.
The bloodhound is a large scent hound, originally bred for hunting deer, wild boar, rabbits, and since the Middle Ages, for tracking people. Believed to be descended from hounds once kept at the Abbey of Saint-Hubert, Belgium, in French it is called, le chien de Saint-Hubert.
Rache, also spelled racch, rach, and ratch, from Old English ræcc, linked to Old Norse rakkí, is an obsolete name for a type of hunting dog used in Great Britain in the Middle Ages. It was a scenthound used in a pack to run down and kill game, or bring it to bay. The word appears before the Norman Conquest. It was sometimes confused with 'brache', which is a French derived word for a female scenthound.
A hart is a male red deer, synonymous with stag and used in contrast to the female hind; its use may now be considered mostly poetic or archaic. The word comes from Middle English hert, from Old English heorot; compare Frisian hart, Dutch hert, German Hirsch, and Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish hjort, all meaning "deer". Heorot is given as the name of Hrothgar's mead hall in the Old English epic Beowulf.
A limer, or lymer, was a kind of dog, a scenthound, used on a leash in medieval times to find large game before it was hunted down by the pack. It was sometimes known as a lyam hound/dog or lime-hound, from the Middle English word lyam, meaning 'leash'. The French cognate limier has sometimes been used for the dogs in English as well. The type is not to be confused with the bandog, which was also a dog controlled by a leash, typically a chain, but was a watchdog or guard dog.
The red deer of Exmoor have been hunted since Norman times, when Exmoor was declared a Royal Forest. Collyns stated the earliest record of a pack of Staghounds on Exmoor was 1598. In 1803, the "North Devon Staghounds" became a subscription pack. In 1824/5 30 couples of hounds, the last of the true staghounds, were sold to a baron in Germany. Today, the Devon and Somerset is one of three staghounds packs in the UK, the others being the Quantock Staghounds and the Tiverton Staghounds. All packs hunt within Devon and Somerset. The Chairman as of 2016 is Tom Yandle, who was previously High Sheriff of Somerset in 1999.
The Poitevin, also known as the Chien de Haut-Poitou, is a breed of French scenthound from the province of Poitou, this predominantly pack hound was created in the 17th century to hunt wolves.
The Staghound, sometimes referred to as the English Staghound, is an extinct breed of scent hound from England. A pack hound, the breed was used to hunt red deer and became extinct in the 19th century when the last pack was sold.
The West Country Harrier, sometimes called Somerset Harrier, is a breed of scent hound from the south west of England that is used to hunt hare in packs. The West Country Harrier is often considered to be a variety of the more common Harrier breed, which is sometimes referred to as the Studbook Harrier.
The King's White Hound, the Chien Blanc du Roi in French, was a breed of scent hound from France that is now extinct. The breed was said to be the favourite of the French kings from Louis XI to Louis XIV.
The American Staghound, referred to by various names including the Cold-Blooded Greyhound, the Longdog of the Prairie and the American Lurcher, is a crossbreed of various sighthounds. It has been bred in the United States from the 19th century where it is used for hunting.
Cuthbert Rayne or Reyne or Raine was an English huntsman who served James VI of Scotland. James VI employed several English hunters and kennelmen who organised his field sports and looked after his dogs, including "Robert the English hunter", Cuthbert Armourer, Edward Dodsworth, and Cuthbert Rayne. In 1582, new kennels were built at Holyrood Palace for dogs brought to James by an English huntsman, Nicholas Poorhouse. English aristocrats wishing to court the king's favour sent dogs, in 1585 Philip Sidney sent a "lyme hound".
In Great Britain and Ireland a sporting lodge – also known as a hunting lodge, hunting box, fishing hut, shooting box, or shooting lodge – is a building designed to provide lodging for those practising the sports of hunting, shooting, fishing, stalking, falconry, coursing and other similar rural sporting pursuits.
Media related to Buckhound at Wikimedia Commons