NOTITIA VENATICA. Ill 



Wc will now return to the old hounds, wliicli, wlion we bad left them, 

 had just concluded the by-gone season. Their services are noAv at an 

 end for the present, their energies wUl no longer be required in the field 

 for at least three months, and by comparative rest and indulgence their 

 mutilated feet and battered joints are to be fresh braced up, and their 

 nerves restrung with a new vigour for the labours of the next hunting- 

 season ; but this rest must not be increased to slothful indolence, nor 

 this indulo'ence be allowed to grow into a contraction of laziness and 

 fat. The stamina is to be preserved by good and noiuishing food ; but 

 the elasticity of the muscles and the clearness of the respiratory organs 

 must be kept in tune by a proportionable quantity of exercise and occa- 

 sional doses of mild physic and alteratives. Upon the commencement 

 of the dead months, it is the custom of most huntsmen to bleed indis- 

 criminately throughout the pack, Avithout regard to age, condition, or 

 constitution. As far as I can judge from mine own experience, I should 

 say that it is a most salutary practice, and I never knew any kind of 

 harm arising from it, but, on the contrary, hounds thus treated have 

 always thriven better after it, and have been in themselves, during the 

 whole of the hot weather, in much better spirits and estate of body than 

 when they have not undergone this kind of discipline. The whole pack 

 shoidd be bled, Avitli the exception of such as may be very shy feeders 

 and of an exceedingly delicate constitution. The extremely sudden 

 change from high feeding and hard work to a state of comparative idle- 

 ness, rendered still more heating by the naturally increased warmth of 

 the atmosphere at that period of the year, must, without doubt, create 

 a disposition to form too great a quantity of blood, which may be plainly 

 seen by any one who is acquainted Avith such matters in the fiery ap- 

 pearance of the eye-balls of houiids in the month of May which have not 

 imdergonc the operation of being blooded ; a dose of salts should then 

 be given, and after a few days' rest a coiu'se of sidphur should be imme- 

 diately commenced, folloAved by a second dose of Epsom salts ; previous 

 to this second dose of salts there is no absolute occasion for much exer- 

 cise, further than for an hoxu' or so along the road, besides their being 

 moved into the paddock three or four times in the day. In about ten 

 days' time the sid2)hur should again be given, in the same proportion as 

 before, foUoAved by a dose of Epsom salts giv^cn in the same manner as 

 the first. This Avill bring the time, AAdien the hunting season has been 

 continued thi'ough the month of April, to about the end of the first week 

 in June, betAveen Avhich period and the end of July the Avhole pack 

 ought to be dressed. The best time to dress hounds is Avhile their coats 

 are stirring, as by attention to that they Avill be nuich Idnder and 

 brighter than by dressing them Avhen the hair is set. As all jiacks of 

 hoimds do not shed their coats exactly at the same time, but vary ac- 

 cording to the Avork they have done and the physicldng and dressing 

 they have undergone during the same year ; of com-se the time for 

 anointing must be chosen Avith regard to that period. The young ones 

 should also be physicked and dressed in the same manner as the old 

 ones ; some huntsmen dress them twice, but unless there is a great ten- 

 dency to redress in their clboAvs and flanks, the operation once properly 



