144 OLD ENGLISH FARE. 



sion, I will now return" to the Kennel Huntsman. I 

 must beg my Readers not to suppose the duty of a 

 Huntsman when out of the field to consist merely in 

 seeing his hounds eat their pudding. " Do fox-hounds 

 eat pudding?" I think I hear some schoolboy ask, or 

 perhaps some gentleman who may have left school 

 some forty years (if either happen to read what I 

 have written). Indeed, my good sir, they do, and 

 beef, and broth, vegetables, milk, and other good 

 things, at times ; and what is more, each gentleman 

 hound is separately invited to dinner, ushered into 

 the dining-room with all proper ceremony ; and when 

 there, if he does not conduct himself with proper dog 

 courtesy to his fellow guests, is very severely repri- 

 manded. I am free to allow the said guests, or most 

 of them, do follow the American table-d?lwte custom of 

 helping themselves to anything and everything within 

 their reach, eating as fast and as much as they can, 

 and then taking themselves off, the dinner conversa- 

 tion consisting in both cases of an occasional growl 

 when interrupted in the process of bolting, I do not 

 say masticating, their food. 



That seeing his hounds get proper food, in proper 

 quantities, proper medicine, and proper exercise, is 

 one duty of the Huntsman, most persons know ; but 

 where head in him is chiefly required, is in the breed- 

 ing of such hounds as are adapted to his particular 

 country. Hounds that will sail away over the large 

 inclosures and fine scenting-ground of Leicestershire 

 would make no hand of some of our cold clayey small 

 inclosed countries, nor would they like the dry flints 

 of Kent. Hounds may be too highly bred for some 

 countries, where they hardly dare throw up their 

 heads for twenty strides together, but must pick it 



