SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 47 



amount of air and exercise out of their stable or 

 loose boxes the hounds do not. Those who have 

 ever paid a visit to a large kennel of foxhounds, 

 however neatly kept, will require no refreshener to 

 their memories that the air in and about its pur- 

 lieus was the very reverse of refreshing. The 

 lodging-rooms may be whitewashed two or three 

 times, the doors well scrubbed and fresh painted, 

 the benches scoured with soda, sand, and soft-soap 

 before the next year's entry comes in ; yet the 

 odora canum vis remains, verifying the old Latin 

 adage, Quo semel est imbutarecens, servabit odorem 

 testa diu. The acid has entered into the flooring, 

 and it is impossible to be entirely mopped out by 

 whole hogsheads of water, like the taint of cider 

 into the wood of a new cask. 



Then there are the odoriferous breezes from the 

 boiling-house ever mixing with and overpowering 

 all other salubrious breezes. Old hounds, accus- 

 tomed to this kind of atmosphere, appear not to be 

 affected by it, like nurses in a sick chamber ; but 

 then it must be borne in mind that during the 

 hunting season they have plenty of fresh air and 

 exercise, and even after the season is over they are 

 walked out two or three times a day, and generally 

 go out with the huntsman and whippers-in for two 

 or three hours before breakfast, or after, through 

 parks or along by-roads, to prevent their quarrel- 

 ling in the kennel from too great idleness. To 

 huddle a lot of young hounds together into a close 

 lodging-room at night, which have been bivouacking 

 out in open sheds at their quarters, or, peradven- 



