EDUCATION OF YOUNG HOUNDS 45 



the number which you choose to spare ; if good and steady, ten or twelve 

 couple will be sufficient. 



My young hounds, and such old ones as are intended to hunt along 

 with them, 1 are kept in a kennel by themselves till the young hounds are 

 hunted with the pack. I need not, I am sure, enumerate the many reasons 

 that make this regulation necessary. 



I never trust my young hounds in the forest till they have been well 

 blooded to fox, and seldom put more than a couple into the pack at a- 

 time : 2 the others are walked out amongst the deer when the men exercise 

 their horses, and are severely chastised if they take any notice of them : 

 they also draw covers with them ; selecting those where they can best 

 see their hounds, and most easily command them, and where there is the 

 least chance to find a fox. On these occasions, I had rather they should 

 have to rate their hounds than encourage them. It requires less judgment, 

 and, if improperly done, is less dangerous in its consequences. One halloo- 

 of encouragement to a wrong scent, more than undoes all that you have 

 been doing. 



When young hounds begin to love a scent, it may be of use to turn 

 out a badger before them : you will then be able to discover what improve- 

 ment they have made. I mention a badger, on a supposition that young 

 foxes cannot so well be spared ; besides, the badger, being a slower animal, 

 he may easily be followed, and driven the way you choose he should run. 



The day you intend to turn out a fox, or badger, you will do well to 

 send them amongst hares, or deer. A little rating and flogging, before- 

 they are encouraged to vermin, is of the greatest use ; as it teaches them, 

 as well what they should not, as what they should, do. I have known 

 a badger run several miles, if judiciously managed ; for which purpose, 

 he should be turned out in a very open country, and followed by a person 

 who has more sense than to ride on the line of him. If he do not meet 

 with a cover, or hedge, in his way, he will keep on for several miles ; if 

 he do, you will not be able to get him any farther. You should give him 

 a great deal of law, and you will do well to break his teeth.* 



If you run any cubs to ground in an indifferent country, and do not 

 wantblood, bring them home, and they will be of use to your young hounds. 

 Turn out bag-foxes to your young hounds, but never to your old ones, 



1 Some also take out their unsteady hounds when they enter the young ones : I doubt the 

 propriety of it. 



' I sometimes send all my young hounds together into the forest, with four or five couple 

 of old hounds only ; such as I know they cannot spoil. As often as any of them break off to- 

 deer, they are taken up and flogged. When they lose one fox they try for another, and are 

 kept out till they are all made tolerably steady. 



8 The critic says, ' there is neither justice nor equity in breaking his teeth ' (vide Monthly 

 Review). I confess there is not ; and I never know that it is done, but I feel all the force of the 

 observation. It is a custom, as Shakespeare says on another occasion, 



' More honour'd in the breach than the observance.' 



