96 HORSES AND HOUNDS. 



give young nettles in the spring of tlie year, boiled with the 

 flesh; and, later in the summer, cabbages. I have also given 

 mangel wurzel ; but this must be used with great caution at 

 first, and requires a good deal of flesh to counteract its laxative 

 properties. Potatoes also, when steamed, and mashed up, are 

 good food, but if boiled, the water in which they are cooked 

 should never be given with them. During the summer months 

 my hounds had always whey once or twice a week. I got it at 

 a neighbouring dairy farm, and used to pay 5s. for the meal, 

 which was sufficient for thirty couples of hounds. 



It is a good plan to have hounds brushed over when they are 

 shedding their coats ; and as at this time the mange will some- 

 times make its appearance, turn the hair back, from the stern 

 up to the head with one hand, and sprinkle a little plain sul- 

 phur with the other, so as to get into the roots of the hair ; 

 smooth it down again, and, two days afterwards, give the hound 

 a good brushing with the flesh-brush. Some huntsmen are very 

 fond of swimming their hounds in the summer months. Once 

 or twice it can do no harm ; but if had recourse to often, it will 

 make their coats coarse, and produce mange. The old and 

 young hounds should take at least three hours' exercise with 

 the horses alternate days, before breakfast. When they return, 

 they should be fed lightly, and have their dinner at four or five 

 o'clock in the evening. I have always fed my hounds tmce a 

 day; their breakfast was strictly a breakfast only — a small 

 bucket of pudding to two of broth for ten couples of hounds, all 

 let in together ; but if any hounds were thin, and bad feeders, 

 they were fed more liberally. I found hounds do better upon 

 the same quantity of food given at two diff"erent meals, than at 

 one only. During the summer months hounds cannot be out 

 too much. Mine were nearly all day out of the kennel, except 

 at breakfast and dinner hours ; in the heat of the day under the 

 shade of trees, and at other times walking about. Nothing is 

 so conducive to health as plenty of air and exercise. 



With all due humility I now approach a subject which has 

 arrested, if it has not occupied, the attention of the cleverest 

 medical men of all ages, and in all climes — rabies canina, or 

 hydrophobia — and which has hitherto baffled the skill of all. 

 It is difficult to account for the appearance of this dreadful 

 scourge, of the human as well as canine race, or to say for how 

 long a period the virus may remain dormant in the system, 

 before made to exhibit itself by some exciting cause. My own 

 opinion is, that it may remain so for months certainly, and I am 

 inclined to believe for years ; and I will give my reasons pre- 

 sently for so thinking. When hydrophobia has once broken 



