A YEAR'S WORK IN THE KENNEL. 45 



and a feed of this once a week to the old hounds 

 will be beneficial, but not more often until they com- 

 mence horse exercise about the middle of July. 



As this period approaches, the young hounds will 

 have been made fairly handy and introduced to the 

 working pack, and after one or two walks on the 

 road in the early morning the huntsman will start 

 horse exercise, accompanied by his two whippers-in, 

 all mounted on horses that can be thoroughly 

 trusted to be perfectly quiet with hounds, as young 

 hounds have a way of getting mixed up with their 

 couples round a horse's legs, and if not perfectly 

 quiet the result is more often than not a valuable 

 hound may be permanently injured. 



It is always advisable to insist on having the young 

 hounds coupled to the old ones for the first time or 

 two, as I have known young hounds, even when 

 coupled together, break away, and when the old 

 hounds are fresh they will sometimes get into 

 mischief if the young ones should be wild. 



With care and proper management these mis- 

 fortunes should be avoided. 



To illustrate my meaning. Many years ago now, 

 white a Scotch pack of harriers were at exercise, a 

 collie dashed across the road just in front of them. 

 With a rush the young hounds were after him, and 

 before the huntsman could do anything the whole 

 pack were over the stone wall, and it was a case of 

 twenty minutes without a check and a kill in the 



