76 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



the farmer liacl to take one or a coiii^le of puppies, 

 regulated according to tlie size of his hokling. 

 These puppies were constantly watched by the 

 game - keepers on whose manor or beat they 

 happened to be ; and they (the keepers) would 

 have lost their places if they had not at once 

 reported ill health or ill condition in the puppies, 

 or that the farmer kept them shut up or confined. 



If puppies at walk have not their full liberty, 

 they will not grow up into useful hounds; and 

 the more hares there are on the farms when they 

 walk, tlie better for the puppies, for then they 

 will teach themselves to hunt, which is the best 

 education of all ; and with a full knowledge of the 

 way to trace an animal they are to follow, they 

 only need to be taught the kind of animal tliey 

 are to stick to. Rated from the hare, and cheered 

 and hallooed to the fox, they soon learn right from 

 wrong; and the l^est hare-hunters while at walk 

 become the best and the steadiest foxhounds in the 

 kennel. The nonsense I have read in the sporting- 

 works of some of the old milestones left on tlie road 

 to knowledge, as to entering ^^ young foxhounds 

 at cats," is too preposterous to deserve further 

 notice. 



