56 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



their usual practice, to feed by the whip as much or more 

 than by the voice. You see them standing at the door, 

 pointing with the whip to each hound as he is called in ; 

 and hounds, in their eagerness for their dinner, with their 

 eyes fixed upon the huntsman and his whip, often mis- 

 take a sign made for another as intended for themselves, 

 and get a good cut for their pains. T had always some 

 very thin switches or light hazel sticks, not thicker than 

 my finger, kept in the feeding house ; but never allowed 

 a whip to be used at dinner hours. I threw the door 

 open after looking well over the lot of hounds I was about 

 to feed, and then called each hound by name distinctly 

 as he was to come in ; if one rushed in unbidden he was 

 ordered back again, and if he did not obey, the whipper- 

 in or feeder gave him a gentle reminder with the switch. 

 Hounds are very sensible animals, and soon understand 

 what is required of them, if their master is quiet and 

 steady with them, and does not get out of temper. In 

 Beckford's time, huntsmen used to flog their hounds 

 whilst feeding them to teach them their names, and he 

 quaintly observes, " that if they had not always a belly- 

 full one way, they seldom failed to get it the other." 

 The confusion I have also witnessed at feeding time, in 

 some kennels, was disgusting. I shall only observe, that 

 any man who cannot feed his hounds without knocking 

 them about with the whip, frightening the timid and 

 driving the others in and over the troughs, is not fit to 

 hold the situation of huntsman. It is not my wish to 

 exact too much or more than I think any man of mode- 

 rate common sense can attain to, but nothing can be done 

 with dogs or animals of any kind in the way of instruc- 

 tion unless common sense is combined with quietness and 



