18 THE SPORT OF KINGS 



paratively speaking, and even in the shires there were 

 not so many bred as there are at the present day. 



I know of one country where, within my recol- 

 lection, some eight to ten couples were all the 

 puppies sent out to walk season after season, and 

 where now from forty-five to fifty couples of 

 puppies are sent out every year. Nor is this an 

 isolated case. In many four-days-a-week countries 

 that I know, as many as seventy couples will be 

 sent out to walk, and yet only perhaps some sixteen 

 or eighteen couples are put forward. Nor is there 

 any difficulty in finding walks for foxhound 

 puppies ; it is, indeed, the other way on, and there 

 is frequently some trouble in supplying the wants 

 of the puppy walkers. 



It may be laid down as a first principle that, 

 no matter how carefully and how well a foxhound 

 puppy may be bred, his excellence, so far as 

 regards make and shape, depends greatly on the 

 quarters he gets, and it is an undoubted fact that 

 it is to the great improvement in puppy-walking 

 methods that the great improvement in the 

 appearance of foxhounds is due. I have seen 

 in my time a poor brute of a foxhound puppy 

 chained to a kennel, fed on all kinds of food till 

 he was " ugly " fat, and confined till he was 

 crooked. " Why do you tie him up ? " I asked. 

 " Oh, he runs after the poultry," was the reply. 

 " You are ruining him," said I ; but the good 

 woman would not see it, and very indignant she 

 was when she heard that he was one of the first 

 drafted. " I'm sure he was well done and had 

 plenty of milk," said the worthy lady ; and so he 

 had, and he had also a belly like the fat pig which 

 was not so very far from him. 



