PRESENTED BY THE DOMESDAY BOOK OF DOGS Black and Tan Coonhound When the night hounds bell. Black and Tan Coonhound. c1940 On arriving in the American colonies British settlers naturally took dogs with them to aid in the endless search for food. In the early part of the seventeenth century the colony in Virginia was ravaged by disease, drought and starvation, not to mention hostile Algonquian Indians. Much of the food they hunted and vermin they attempted to eradicate took to the trees, whereas in Europe they might be more likely to go to ground. North America even has a species of fox with semi-retractile claws, Urocyon cinereoargenteus , which can climb trees ! Old Virginia Foxhound. c1930. First imported into the Virginia colony in 1650, hounds at the time were used in vermin control rather than for organised, mounted hunts. The settlers hunted on foot and dogs introduced into this environment would invariably tree their quarry...