MR. MEYNELl''s opinions AND PRACTICE. 391 



selves. For example, he tells us that his young- 

 hounds were broken in to hare in the spring of the 

 year, " to find out their propensities, which, when 

 at all flagrant, they early discovered, and he draft- 

 ed them according to their defects %'' and in the 

 same page he adds, " after hare-hunting, they 

 were, the remaining part of summer, daily walked 

 amongst riot." Now we cannot approve of enter- 

 ing hounds to an animal they are not intended to 

 Iiunt, and are at a loss to comprehend what is here 

 meant by the word '' riot,'' unless it be hares (as 

 the term generally implies) or deer (which were 

 never found wild in his country,) whicli they had 

 been previously instructed to hunt. Their '' pro- 

 pensities," also, by w^hich is here generally under- 

 stood their steadiness or unsteadiness, must, under 

 such circumstances, have been rather difficult to 

 pronounce an opinion upon, with the exception of 

 their promising to be true to the line, and not given 

 to skirt. The goodness or badness of nose could of 

 course have been discernible when hunting their 

 own game (the fox,) to which, in our opinion, all 

 fox-hounds should be entered. Beckford, we re- 

 inember, speaks of his huntsman letting his puppies 

 enter to a cat ; but we cannot approve of such a 

 practice. 



Early in the autumn, Mr. Meynell hunted his 

 woodlands, Charnwood Forest chiefly, with his 

 whole pack, and then divided them into " the okF' 

 and '-'• the young pack ;" but, to show the disad- 

 vantage of this system, Mr. Hawkes says, '' the 

 young hounds were hunted twice a-week, as much 



