138 HORSES AND HOUNDa. 



hunting season, I am satisfied most packs would give a better 

 account of their afternoon fox. When I kept fox-hounds they 

 were always treated in this manner, and, as I have before stated, 

 had always a little thin lap for breakfast, being fed regularly twice 

 a day through the year. The result of this treatment was, that 

 my hounds lasted for many years longer than they usually do : 

 and although we had long distances to go, and once or twice a 

 week left off generally more than twenty miles from the 

 kennels, I never saw them beaten. Moonlight rides were very 

 frequent, but the hounds were up to the mark, and returned home 

 cheerfully, with their sterns well up. They have been running as 

 late as twelve o'clock at night, in large woodlands, where we 

 could not stop them, the owls giving view-halloos all round us. 

 Beckford truly remarks, " A half-starved hound will never 

 kill an afternoon fox." We often see in BelVs Life extraordinary 

 accounts of runs, twenty or thirty miles, but they want the 

 finish. It is no use distending the stomachs of hounds with a 

 quantity of liquid. They require the greatest amount of nutri- 

 tious matter, combined in the smallest quantity. 



The number of hounds to form the hunting pack in the field 

 should not exceed 20 couples ; 16 or 18 are quite suflicient, the 

 efficiency of the pack not depending upon numbers, but the 

 individual merits of each hound. Young hounds of the first 

 season are seldom of much use, and often do a great deal of 

 mischief ; they must not, therefore, be considered as rendering 

 any service, or conducing to the strength of the pack, but be 

 rather treated as lookers-on. Never take out too many young 

 hounds together — four or five couples are enough at a time — 

 until they are become quite steady. Some young hounds are 

 slow to enter, and I have known them remain at the horse's 

 heels for months, without showing any disposition to join the 

 pack. Such are often drafted by the huntsman as useless, but 

 1 have found them turn out better in the end than those which 

 have at once set to work. Precocious talents do not often stand 

 the test of time so well as those of slower development. There 

 is only one fault for which I should at once draft a young 

 hound : his being noisy or too free with his tongue — this fault 

 generally increases with his years, and is, in my opinion, the 

 greatest a hound can possess. 



Having an aversion to sending my brood bitches long dis- 

 tances to other kennels, it was my custom to take a few couples, 

 or even the whole unentered lot of young hounds, from a 

 kennel with which I wished to cross, with the prospect of one 

 or two of these young hounds proving of service to me after- 

 wards, and I had thus an opportunity of judging from my own 



