LETTER IX. 93 



twice a day, and gel flesh occasionally. Animal food is 

 as necessary to keep dogs in full health and strength as 

 oats are to keep horses in condition. I shall be told that 

 foxhounds have plenty of animal food with their meat ; 

 but in what state is this animal food presented to them ? 

 When it is deprived of all the juices and nutriment it 

 once contained, i.e. boiled to rags. T know that the 

 broth or liquor, as it is termed, is nutritious, but the food 

 of hounds is generally mixed up too thin. The day be- 

 fore hunting, at least, their food should be given as thick 

 as they can eat it, and were it always so prepared during 

 the hunting season, I am satisfied most packs would give 

 a better account of their afternoon fox. When I kept 

 foxhounds they were alwaj^s treated in this manner, and, 

 as I have before stated, had always a little thin lap for 

 breakfast, being fed regularly twice a day through the 

 year. The result of this treatment was, that my hounds 

 lasted for many years longer than they usually do ; and 

 although we had long distances to go, and once or twice 

 a week left off generally more than twenty miles from 

 the kennels, I never saw them beaten. Moonlight rides 

 were very frequent, but the hounds were up to the mark, 

 and returned home cheerfully, with their sterns well up. 

 They have been running as late as twelve o'clock at 

 night, in large woodlands, where we could not stop them, 

 the owls giving view-halloos all around us. 



Beckford truly remarks, **A half-starved hound will 

 never kill an afternoon fox." We often see in Bell's 

 Life extraordinary accounts of runs, 20 or 30 miles, but 

 they want the finish. It is no use distending the stomachs 

 of hounds with a quantity of liquid. They require the 

 greatest amount of nutritious matter, combined in the 

 smallest quantity. 



