r28 HUNTING. 



The annexed plan of the Badminton kennels will show the 

 residence of a five-days-a-week pack. There is probably 

 nothing in this which, by the aid of its reference, will not be 

 readily understood. TTie hounds' bath is, it will be seen, placed 

 at the entrance to the kennels. It slopes down one side and 

 up the other, and through this every hound is driven when he 

 comes home from hunting, or from taking his walks in the park, 

 which he does two or three times daily. Some authorities have 

 filled their baths full of pot liquor instead of water, and Long, 

 who formerly hunted the Badminton hounds, used to set one of 

 his men to splash pot liquor over the hounds as they ran through, 

 the object being to make the animals lick each other, for the heal- 

 ing properties of the tongue are considerable, and slight wounds 

 caused during the day's work are thus benefited. Without this, 

 however, hounds will always lick as they lie on their benches, 

 the food which they sprinkle over their bodies while at the 

 troughs helping to induce the habit. 



We may also here give a sketch plan and explanation of one 

 of these converted kennels which Beckford seems to condemn 

 altogether, and which, in his time, no doubt deserved to be 

 condemned. Had he seen the one here described he would 

 have written differently. The work was done cheaply, without 

 plans or specifications, by local men. 



The original building was a long potato house, a granary, and a 

 wall, besides a yard. The building was tiled, but the tiles were 

 removed and the roof thatched, thatch being warm in winter and 

 cool in summer ; the floor was levelled with rough stones, broken 

 brickbats, &c., the whole concreted and made smooth on the surface, 

 with a good slope from back of lodging room right through to out- 

 side fence of yard ; a surface grip in concrete along outside fence of 

 yard running through all the yards to a drain outside the yard at 

 end, then conveyed through ^/a^'ifi/ pipes to the river. The height of 

 fence outside and round the yards is about 8 feet, 6 feet closely 

 boarded, 2 feet paled, and the same round grass yards. The alley 

 outside 4 feet broad with an outside railing 4 feet 6 inches high. 

 The alley is very useful as hounds can be taken from top yard to 

 feeding room without going through the other yard, especially for 



