THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 119 



which enable a conditioned hunter " to go anywhere 

 and do anything" enable him also to have an abrupt 

 change in diet. Almost, though not quite, the same 

 may be said regarding the housing or protection from 

 atmospheric changes. It is evident, of course, that 

 this cannot be done all at once without injury. The 

 skin, which has been groomed and kept in a perfectly 

 active state through many months, cannot be ex- 

 posed to cold night air all at once without damaging 

 the lungs and perhaps the bowels. The skin, we 

 have before remarked, is an important "drain," 

 which cold air and filth closes, and therefore its 

 work has to be performed by one or other of the 

 other drains — the lungs, for example; and as no 

 organ can carry on its own duties and have the 

 duties of another organ thrown upon it all at once 

 without coming to grief more or less, therefore we 

 find the lungs suffering when the body surface is 

 suddenly exposed to unusual cold, and we have 

 congestion of some parts of the air-passages or 

 the lungs, or both, following such abrupt exposure, 

 and cough at the very least resulting. 



Of course, we are here dealing with the hunter 

 that has to be put by, so to speak, for the summer. 

 There can be no question that there is no gain in 

 any other way in thus radically changing the whole 

 constitution of the horse. If the condition could be 

 maintained during the summer — that is to say, if 

 one could afford to keep a heavy staff of grooms, 

 and either exercise the horse oneself, or command 



