NOTES 335 



call attention, and hoisting my hunting-cap on my whip to solicit peculiar 

 notice ; thus we remained for many minutes. I think Mr. Shedden must 

 have seen my raised cap, rather a remarkable act in a former master of 

 hounds, and one which I thought would not be slighted ; however, no 

 notice seemed to be taken of it, and the fox having rested, and grown 

 tired of our mutual inspection, rose, shook himself, and started at a nasty 

 long-going canter, that looked as if he had caught a second wind, running 

 parallel with the brook, and at last crossing a road close by Mr. Thomas 

 Wyndham, who immediately holloaed him. I galloped down the brook, 

 and joined Mr. Wyndham, and there we sat and holloaed till we were 

 tired. After at least a quarter of an hour's delay, or more, Mr. Shedden 

 brought his hounds, and, to my amusement, pettishly asked us what we 

 were holloaing at. I said, e e What else but our fox ! " The error of this 

 (f let-' em-alone " plan was, that instead of a view at a blown and beaten 

 fox, the hounds were put a quarter of an hour behind a rested fox, who, 

 in addition to his rest, had just swam through a cold brook, and conse- 

 quently started with his extremities chilled and his mouth shut, leaving 

 for a time still less scent than ever. The hounds in fact could not speak 

 to it, but a holloa ahead took them on, and, as I have often seen to 

 happen after crossing water with both deer and fox, the line warmed up 

 again, and the hounds could mark him. We held him on some way with 

 repeated checks, so far, that I confess that every moment I expected the 

 hounds to hunt up to him in a hedgerow and kill him, but to my aston- 

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

 and the further it will go. 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 wonderful than 

 fiction, my readers will be astonished when I tell them, that if a grey 

 horse, a bay, a chestnut or a black one, are 'boiled fairly in two different 

 boilers, I will, on being shown the soup, declare which broth is made 



