HUIfTTNG COIflHTION. 67 



to circumstances. On some occasions, a fourth dose of purgative 

 medicine is given ; the necessity for which is determined by the 

 pecuHarities of the case. 



In many districts suitable for the purpose, cub hunting is 

 resorted to about the latter end of September, in lieu of the 

 common walking and trotting exercise. The particular course 

 specified above, consisting as it does of dieting, physicking, 

 and exercising the hunter for the purpose of thorouglily 

 freeing the organism of all the impurities wliich act, so to 

 speak, by impeding the wheels of its machinery, cannot be 

 hastily accomplished. The wind of the animal requires to be 

 purified, vigour given to the muscles, and endurance to the 

 vital energies. By the action of purgative medicine, the 

 body is drained of its superabundant serum; by sweating and 

 grooming a similar process is efiected through the medium of 

 the skin ; while at the same time, greater freedom of action is 

 given to the depurating and exhalent organs of the body, or in 

 other words, relieving the pulmonary, vascular, and muscular 

 systems of much that would otherwise prove detrimental to the 

 animal if put to severe, and long-continued labour. Condition, 

 then, so far as we at present understand it, is only to be 

 obtained by dieting, grooming, and exercising the animal, 

 aided occasionally by the judicious administration of purgatives. 



The plans which I have detailed, cannot perhaps be adhered to 

 in every instance to the very letter. Horses, like human beings, 

 differ much in constitution. Many of the best hunters are 

 delicate feeders; others are the reverse ; and others are naturally 

 of a bad, gross habit of body; in short, there are horses of 

 various peculiarities of constitution, and they require to be 

 known and clearly understood by those having their manage- 

 ment, — and, as experience proves, the mode of treatment must 

 be varied to meet the requirements of each peculiar case. The 



