LETTER XXII. 



ARE not your expectations somewhat too sanguine, 

 l when you think that you shall have no occasion 

 for bag-foxes to keep your hounds in blood the first 

 season ? It may be as well, perhaps, not to turn 

 them all out, till you can be more certain that your 

 young pack will keep good and steady without them. 

 When blood is much wanted, and they are tired with 

 a hard day, one of these foxes will put them into 

 spirits, and give them, as it were, new strength and 

 vigour. 



You desire to know, what I call being out of blood t 

 In answer to which, I must tell you, that, in my 

 judgment, no fox-hound can fail of killing more than 

 three or four times following, without being visibly 

 the worse for it. When hounds are out of blood, 

 there is a kind of evil genius attending all that they 

 do ; and, though they may seem to hunt as well as 

 ever, they do not get forward ; while a pack of fox- 

 hounds well in blood, like troops flushed with 

 conquest, are not easily withstood. What we call ill 

 luck, day after day, when hounds kill no foxes, may 

 frequently I think, be traced to another cause, namely, 

 theii' being out of blood ; nor can there be any other 

 reason assigned why hounds, which we know to be 



239 



