50 NOTITIA VENATICA. 



whose experience has never reached beyond the bricks and mortar, 

 without the opportunity of judging, as sportsmen and economists, why 

 doors should be placed in this direction, or windows in that ; of the 

 height of benches, the location of coolers, the width of doorways, and 

 many other apparent trifles, which Avill be all found and hunted up to in 

 their proper places. My endeavour shall be to describe, in the best way 

 I can, a kennel perfect in its conveniences ; approachable at all points 

 in its interior with the greatest facility, without interfering with, and 

 disturbing that repose so essential to animals, which must be kept in the 

 highest state of condition ; healthy and cleanly in the arrangement of 

 its ventilation, draining, and feeding ; and economical in the locahty of 

 the meal and other store-rooms, as well as in the expense attending its 

 whole production. The situation of a kennel should on no account be 

 near a public road or footpath, if it can be avoided, for many reasons 

 too obvious to require enumerating ; it should face the south, east, or 

 south-east, but not be ojien to the west or north, as many are. 



The lodging-rooms of a kennel, if built in a proper manner, should 

 always have other rooms over them, as they will then be much warmer 

 in winter, and may be kept much cooler in summer. If the kennels are 

 only buUdings without rooms or lofts over them, they should be carried 

 up as high as they conveniently can, and not slated nor tiled, but 

 thatched neatly. Tliis plan has been found fault with as harbouring 

 vermin ; but if the roof is properly plastered in the inside, there will be 

 no fleas nor ticks ; and if built a reasonable height from the ground, and 

 defended by pieces of sheet-iron at the corners, rats and mice will not 

 he able to climb up. The plaster should be put only on the roof, as 

 walls plastered are very apt, when broken, to harbom* ticks ; the bricks 

 should be aU carefully struck, as the masons term it, and well pointed 

 inside. 



One of the rooms should be occupied by the boUer or feeder as his 

 sleeping apartment, as hounds ought never to be left entirely alone, 

 without some one close at hand, and within hearing, for one single mo- 

 ment, or they may quarrel and worry each other. Many instances 

 might be recorded of hounds being worried in the kennel. Colonel Cook 

 mentions the fact of three being thus destroyed in the short space of ten 

 minutes ; and the author had the same number killed in one of liis ken- 

 nels, where no one slept near at hand, during one week in the summer 

 of 1834. What made it more extraordinary was, that they were all of 

 one family, namely, two brothers, and a young hound got by one of 

 them ; they were all remarkably ill-tempered, wliich is a convincing 

 proof that the victim in such unfortunate cases is generally the ag- 

 gressor. 



If the lodging-rooms are lofty (about the height of eleven feet) and 

 well-ventUated, providing they have rooms over them, they will be sufii- 

 ciently cool in summer ; and dmnng the time that hounds are in the 

 kennel, they had much better be upon their beds, than lying out, as is 

 the custom in some establishments, under the shade of trees, on the damp 

 ground. It was the opinion of Mr. W. Smith, Lord Yarborough's 

 huntsman, that nothing contributes to render hounds liable to rhcuma- 



