18 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



become riotous. About forty couple, I think, will best answer your pur- 

 pose. Forty couple of hunting hounds will enable you to hunt three, or 

 even four, times in a week ; and, I will venture to say, will kill more foxes 

 than a greater number. Hounds, to be good, must be kept constantly 

 hunted ; and if I should hereafter say, a fox-hound should be above his 

 work, it will not be a young fox-hound that I shall mean ; for he should 

 seldom be left at home, as long as he is able to hunt : the old and lame, 

 and such as are low in flesh, you should leave ; and such as you are 

 sure idleness cannot spoil. 



It is a great fault to keep too many old hounds. If you choose that 

 your hounds should run well together, you should not continue any, longer 

 than five or six seasons ; though there is no saying, with certainty, what 

 number of seasons a hound will last. Like us, some of them have better 

 constitutions than others, and consequently will bear more work ; and 

 the duration of all bodies depends as much on the usage that they meet 

 with, as on the materials of which they are made. 



You ask, whether you had not better buy a complete pack at once, 

 than be at the trouble of breeding one ? Certainly you had, if such an 

 opportunity should offer. It sometimes happens, that hounds are to 

 be bought for less money than you could breed them. The gentle- 

 man to whom my house formerly belonged, 1 had a most famous pack of 

 fox-hounds. His goods, etc., were appraised and sold ; which, when the 

 appraiser had done, he was put in mind of the hounds. ' Well, gentle- 

 men,' said he, ' what shall I appraise them at ? A shilling a-piece ? ' 

 ' Oh, it is too little ! ' ' Is it so ? ' said the appraiser ' why, it is more 

 than / would give for them, I assure you.' 



Hounds are not bought so cheap at Tatter sail's. 



* J ' I believe the first real steady pack of fox-hounds established in the western part of 

 England was by Thomas Fownes, Esq., of Stepleton, about the year 1730. They were as 

 handsome and fully as complete as any of the most celebrated packs of the present day. They 

 were sold to Mr. Bowes in Yorkshire at an immense price for those days.' Anecdotes Concern- 

 ing Cranbourn Chase, by Eev. Wm. Chafin, 1818. 



