Thoughts on Beagling

"Everything I kill I eat," says Roland Baltimore, a Virginia hunter who enjoys venison, chicken and Elmer Fudd's elusive favorite: "wabbit stew." Of course, the twubble with wabbits is that they're small and fast and pretty skilled at playing hide and seek. Which is where your basic beagle hound accessory pack comes into play. Filmmaker Tom Davenport (whose Brothers Grimm fairy tale adaptations are rightful legends in children's film and video) follows three Southern men on various points along the economic spectrum and their dogs through their daily routines: Clayton Bright, who shows his beagles; Claude Honeycutt, who likens the sounds of his beagles to "opera" (which, depending on your perspective, means that Claude is perhaps a little hard of hearing or a fairly astute listener), and Roland Baltimore, who relies on his hounds to help him put the proverbial "meat on the table." While Thoughts on Beagling is a consistently interesting tape, the audio is, unfortunately, occasionally awful. Those with larger hunting collections will definitely want to consider regardless of the technical drawbacks; for others this is an optional purchase. Also available: Thoughts on Fox Hunting. (R. Pitman)