NOTES. 411 



kill him, but to my astonishment, with his line, though cold, 

 still extant, Mr. Shedden gave him up and went home. 



In keeping hounds, many men, with an idea of economy, at 

 times feed them on rice, on biscuit, and even on indifferent 

 or coarse flour. In offering such masters advice, I would 

 recommend them to abstain from these errors, and to feed 

 their hounds while they keep them, on the best coarse-gi'ound 

 and kiln-dried oatmeal, the older the meal is the better, and, 

 the further it xcnll rjo. I do not think that it is economy to do 

 anything ill : to farm ill is ruin to an agriculturist, and to be 

 fed ill is ruin to a pack of hounds. That master who feeds 

 his pack on the stuff I have described, does not get out of his 

 creatures the worth of his penny ; while if he fed them with 

 the best food, he would assuredly have the value of his 

 pound. Iron boilers and good old meal, with the meat from 

 cows and horses, the fresher the better, no soup used after 

 it gets stale, is the only food that puts a hound behind his 

 fox in the best possible condition. 



By way of still illustrating the fact, that truth is more won- 

 derful than fiction, my readers will be astonished when I tell 

 them, that if a grey horse, a bay, a chesnut or a black one, 

 are boiled fairly in two different boilers, I will, on being- 

 shown the soup, declare which broth is made from the grey 

 horse. The soup from the grey horse, however nearly white 

 he may be, is of a darker colour than any of the others. 



I would train my greyhounds on oatmeal, but for this, 

 reason, in travelling you can't take your iron boiler with you; 

 and to chano;e the food of a runniu"; dog, is to throw him out 

 of condition. Therefore, and therefore only, I feed my grc}'- 

 hounds on biscuit, which is portable, and can be procured in 

 most places. 



One word on passing events, and on a measure dropped 

 this session in the Houses of Parliament as to "dogs in 

 harness." When in parliament, I successfully resisted the at- 

 tempt to take from ten thousand families the means of earning 

 their livelihood, and prevented the destruction of tioenty thou- 

 sand dogs, more or less, which would inevitably have been 

 doomed to death, had that false-hearted measure succeeded. 



