276 HORSES AND HOUNDS. 



employed at 10s. per week, merely to walk with the young 

 hounds for two or three hours a day, the feeder, of course, going 

 with them. By tliis plan they would not only be kept in health, 

 but be ready to go out of couples by the time the hunting 

 season was over, and Jack's services would not be required to 

 break them from running those little flighty animals, some with 

 short and some with long tails, abounding in most villages, and 

 which Mr. Slowman used to designate by the opprobrious 

 epithet of car dogs. 



There is a vast deal of stuff and nonsense talked by huntsmen 

 in break] ng-in young hounds. The fact is, but for the eabsurd 

 custom of shutting them up away from the sight of every other 

 living animal but themselves for at least a month or two 

 after they come in from their walks, they would require no 

 breaking at all, except from hare or deer. From, pupjj^hood 

 they have been accustomed to sheep and cur dogs, without ex- 

 hibiting any great desire to kill and eat either the one or the 

 other ; certainly not the latter, I should say, from choice. 



To prove how far air and exercise will go to ameliorate the 

 effects of distemper, I will merely mention, that I tried the 

 experiment with three young hounds, which were seized with 

 the usual symptoms a short time since. They caught the dis- 

 temper from another dog, not belonging to me, which died in 

 convulsions. Being satisfied in my own mind of the necessity 

 of air and exercise, as most efficient assistants in reducing the 

 virulence of this disease, I tried what these would do alone, 

 without giving any medicine at all, not even an emetic or 

 spoonful of salt and water. These three puppies, not quite ten 

 months old, were attacked with the usual symptoms — a diy 

 husky cough, and discharge from the nose. I fed them twice a 

 day ; for breakfast a little warm skim milk, with barley meal, 

 scalded, which they had about eight o'clock. At ten o'clock I 

 took them out walking over some fresh ploughed fallows, and 

 then home through pasture fields, to have a good run, if they 

 felt inclined. They had another hour's exercise about four 

 o'clock, and were fed again at six in the evening. I pursued 

 this plan of walking them over the fresh-ploughed land twice 

 a day, sometimes behind the plough. The running at_ the nose 

 ceased in three or four days, and in ten from the time they 

 were first attacked, they were as well as if they had never had 

 the distemper at all. Having stated this fact, to prove what 

 air and exercise can effect, I leave it with masters of hounds for 

 their consideration. 



At the request of a friend, who wished me to give him some 

 information on hare-hunting as well as fox-hunting, I purpose 



