40 SYSTEM OF KEMNEL AND 



handled in early puppybood ; yet even now, at ten 

 or eleven months of age, their form is not fully 

 developed. Throughout the whole animal creation, 

 including birds also, females attain their perfection 

 of growth long before the males. Those young 

 foxhounds which appear rather loosely strung to- 

 gether at this age, generally turn out the most 

 powerful when twelve or fourteen months old. 

 We prefer those which show room for improvement 

 to others more closely knit together, in which no 

 further improvement can take place. Short-bodied 

 hounds set, as huntsmen say, very early, and these 

 are selected or drafted without much deliberation. 

 Lengthy ones require looking over more attentively, 

 since, when of a late litter, there is an apparent 

 deficiency of nmscle behind the shoulders, and in 

 the loins and hind quarters, which will till up as 

 they become matured in age. We do not regard 

 a hound being rather throaty or coarse about the 

 head, provided he has oblique shoulders, straight 

 long fore-legs, standing clear of his body at the 

 elbows, but not out of the perpendicular ; with 

 good ankles, and round, not exactly cat-like, feet 

 — for such, altliough pretty to the eye, will not 

 bear much wear and tear. Hunting men know 

 that horses with upright pasterns and short hoofs 

 are the most uncomfortable of all animals to ride 

 anywhere, particularly in going to covert and in 

 the field. Their action is a succession of jolts and 

 jars, resembling a donkey's canter. In hound and 

 horse there must be a certain lenojth between the 

 knee and foot, to enable them to travel easily to 



