5 JANUARY 1962, Page 26

MAN AND CAVEMAN

SIR,—When, in the early stages of the Peninsular War, the British Army lay behind the lines of Torres Vedras, Wellington sent to England for a pack, or packs, of hounds to provide recreation for himself and his officers. It is not unlikely that some of those hounds went with the Army, through Spain, into France.

Upon the defeat of Soult at Toulouse and the abdication of Napoleon the British infantry sailed from Bordeaux to America or England. The cavalry rode through France and embarked for England at Boulogne and their route would have taken them through the Dordogne where they may well have left behind any hounds still with them