38 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



If your hounds be low in flesh, and have far to 

 go to cover, they may all have a little thin lap 

 again in the evening ; but this should never be 

 done if you hunt early. 1 Hounds, I think, should 

 be sharp-set before hunting : they run the better 

 for it. 2 



If many of your hounds, after long rest, should be 

 too fat, 3 feeding them for a day or two on thinner 

 meat than you give the others, will be found, I 

 believe, to answer better than the usual method of 

 giving them the same meat, and stinting them in 

 the quantity of it. 



If your hounds be not walked out, they should be 

 turned into the grass-court to empty themselves, after 

 they have been fed : it will contribute not a little 

 to the cleanliness of the kennel. 



I have heard, that it is a custom in some kennels 

 to shut up the hounds for a couple of hours after they 

 come in from hunting, before they are fed ; and that 

 other hounds are shut up with them, to lick them 

 clean. 4 My usual way is to send in a whipper-in 

 before them, that the meat may be got ready against 

 they come, and they are fed immediately: having 

 filled their bellies, they are naturally inclined to 



1 Hounds that are tender feeders cannot be fed too late, or with meat 

 too good. 



2 Vide note, page y]. 



3 Hounds that rest should not be suffered to become fat. It would be 

 accounting very badly for the fatness of a hound, to say, " He is fat 

 because he has not worked lately ; " since he ought to have been kept 

 lower on that account. 



4 If hounds be shut up as soon as they come in from hunting, they 

 will not readily leave the benches afterwards; for if they be much 

 fatigued, they will prefer rest to food. 



