166 NOTITIA VENATICA. 



and free system of ventilation is a thing not half sufficiently attended to 

 in kennels and stables, and I am well convinced that ninety-nino cases 

 of illness out of the hundred which occur may he traced to a neglect of 

 so necessary a precaution, as cither that or efficient drainage. Nothing 

 is so had, after no ventilation at all, as for hounds to he allowed to lie in 

 a thorough draft, more especially with the wind blowing from the east. 

 An hour of such neglect is sufficient to totally anniliilate the condition 

 of a pack of hounds for weeks to come, producing, as I myself can bear 

 witness, the most injurious consequences in the shape of colds, rheu- 

 matism, swelled heads, and sore throats, Avhich are not very easily got 

 rid of with the greatest nursing and attention. Men arc very apt to be 

 taken off their guard in hot weather, and I always fancy that more 

 severe colds are caught during so trying a season, especially when a dry 

 burning wind comes from the east, or a sudden change of the atmosphere 

 takes place. Indiscriminately swimming hounds at exercise is a very 

 questionable practice, and, in my opinion, very unhuntsmanlike. During 

 the heat of summer there can bo no harm in occasionally giving them a 

 turn over a clear river or large fish pond, provided they are not kept in 

 too long, and care is taken to dry them well afterwards, by allowing 

 them to walk about some nice grass field, before they are allowed to 

 travel in the dust, so that their clean jackets should not be stained all 

 over. Swimming in the sea is a very different thing altogether ; no- 

 thing can be more salubrious, and where a pack are within distance, I 

 would take them two or three times a week during the heat of summer, 

 and exercise them on the sea-shore. Hounds soon learn to swim out 

 into the sea, and at first it is very easy to got them across the arms of 

 Avater that run up inland as the tide begins to flow. Besides, it does 

 the horses' legs as much good as the hounds' constitutions to bo ridden 

 into it, and the water is an excellent and cooHng medicine for either ani- 

 mal, if they will drink it, as I have seen many do. I have also knowji 

 hounds to lap sea-water, after killing a fox in the breakers, with avidity, 

 during a hot day in the spring, the effects of which were most evident 

 in ten minutes after, and any stranger to the scene would have almost 

 thought that they were all in exercise after physic, instead of on their 

 road to draw for a second fox. I have heard some good judges of con- 

 dition say that a continuance of sea bathing is far preferable to all tho 

 dressing in the world, provided the pack has not been actually attacked 

 by mange, a thing seldom to be met with in these days of eleanhness 

 and improvement. 



Before I conclude my labours, I suppose I ought, according to cus- 

 tom, to give a description of a perfect run. Now, I consider that 

 imaginary runs arc almost too puerile for even cockneys to read ; and 

 although I can describe a run perfect in all its parts, even to the " who- 

 whoop," and where I might add " et quorum pars ma fjna fui,'' the fact 

 of its having taken place in a woodland district, and consequently tho 

 ground traversed only well known to a few provincials, will, I fear, ren- 

 der its record of not quite so interesting a character as if it had been 

 enjoyed from " tho Coplow" or tho far-famed gorse-cover at Mistcrton. 

 Still, however, I must describe it, short as tho narration may be, as I 



