182 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



Init on no account wlien the soup gets stale should 

 it be given to working hounds ; it will affect their 

 bowels, and unfit them for arduous days. 



WJien hounds are not in work, during the idle 

 time in summer, if you can get them to eat it, they 

 will keep up their condition on good old oatmeal 

 without any flesh at all. However, as there are 

 sure to be some dainty feeders among them, in 

 place of flesh, which in summer gets so soon stale, 

 ofive them milk once skimmed with their meal. 

 When I kept hounds, I always purchased an extra 

 cow ' in full milk for the kennel consumption. ' I 

 saw the late Mr. Wyndham, of Dinton, find a fox 

 in a gorse cover on the Wiltshire Downs, and get 

 away with him in view. The scent Avas first-rate, 

 but before half-an-hour was over, hounds began to 

 ^^ tail," to drop behind, and to lie down panting. 

 The fox ran them out of view, and at last out of 

 their powers of scent, and when the fox was lost 

 I asked Mr. Wyndham what his hounds had been 

 fed on. '^ Wheat meal," and, of course, ^' from the 

 tail," was the reply. 



When men who wish to seem to know something 

 about hounds, come into the kennel, by introduc- 

 tion of the owner or tlie liuntsman, they cast their 



