172 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



— viz. five good feeds in the twenty-four hours. 

 Grooms should always recollect that fever will accom- 

 pany repletion : it is, indeed, against the manifest 

 law of Nature to calculate otherwise, 



I must here observe that the system just laid down 

 cannot be pursued in the month of August (if, indeed, 

 in the month of September) with a hunter which has 

 had his summer's run at grass, but only with one 

 which has been properly summered ; and it does not 

 require a conjuror to inform us which of the twain 

 will be most fit to go to hounds in November ! 



When speaking of the coat or hair of horses, it must 

 be remarked that the coat itself is not always an index 

 of their general health, as there are some who, at 

 certain periods of the year, never have a good one ; but 

 the skin is always a criterion to judge by. If that 

 feels dry, with hard lumps upon it, and is of a dusty 

 hue, with a scurf arising on the surface of it, we may 

 depend upon it our horse is not in kind condition — 

 even should there be no affection of his lungs, which, 

 under such circumstances, is always to be appre- 

 hended. We may be sure his skin is preternaturally 

 distended, and wants relaxing by such medicines as 

 will act gently on its fibres, and also improve the 

 general health. It is by the state of the skin that 

 naturalists decide whether the climate is, or is not, 

 too severe for animals which are not indigenous to 

 it. If what is called " the yolk " rise on the surface 

 of it, the animal will exist and do well, but not other- 

 wise. Those inveterate disorders, grease and eczema, 

 are cutaneous maladies of common occurrence. 



