OF HOUNDS THAT KILL SHEEP 191 



hunted in covers where hares were in great plenty, 

 I never remember to have seen him run one step 

 after them. 



A change of country, also, will sometimes occasion 

 a difference in the steadiness of hounds. My hounds 

 hunt frequently in Cranborn Chase, and are steady 

 from deer ; yet I once knew them run an outlying deer, 

 which they unexpectedly found in a distant country. 



I am sorry to hear that so bad an accident has 

 happened to your pack, as that of killing sheep ; but I 

 apprehend from your account of it, that it proceeded 

 from idleness, rather than vice. The manner in 

 which the sheep were killed, may give you some 

 insight into it; old practitioners generally seizing by 

 the neck, and seldom, if ever, behind. This, like other 

 vices, sometimes runs in the blood : in an old hound it 

 is, I believe, incorrigible : the best way, therefore, will 

 be to hang all those which, after two or three 

 whippings, cannot be cured of it. In some countries, 

 hounds are more inclined to kill sheep than they are 

 in others. Hounds may be steady in countries where 

 the covers are fenced, and sheep are only to be seen 

 in flocks, either in large fields or on open downs ; and 

 the same hounds may be unsteady in forests and 

 heathy countries, where the sheep are not less wild 

 than the deer. However, hounds, should they stir but 

 a step after them, should undergo the severest disci- 

 pline : if young hounds do it from idleness, that, and 

 plenty of work, may reclaim them : for old hounds 

 guilty of this vice, I know, as I said before, of but one 

 sure remedy — the halter. 



