224 STRANGE HOUNDS TO BE 



last year, were hurtful to my pack. They had 

 run with a pack of harriers ; and, as I soon 

 found, were never afterwards to be broken from 

 hare. It was the beginning of the season ; 

 covers were thick, hares in plenty, and we 

 seldom killed less than five or six in the morn- 

 ing. The pack at last got so much blood, that 

 they would hunt them as if they were designed 

 to hunt nothing else. I ])arted with the two 

 hounds; and the others, by proper manage- 

 ment, are become as steady as they were before. 

 You will remind me, perhaps, that they were 

 draft hounds. It is true, they were so; but 

 they were three or four years hunters; an age 

 when they might be supposed to have known 

 better. I advise you, unless a known good 

 pack of hounds are to be disposed of, not to 

 accept old hounds. I mention this to encou- 

 rage the breeding of hounds, and as the likeliest 

 means of getting a handsome, good, and steady 

 pack. Though I give you this advice, it is 

 true I have accepted draft hounds myself, and 

 some have been very good ; but they were the 

 gift of the friend mentioned by me in a former 

 letter ;* and, unless you meet with such ano^ 



* The Hon. INIr. Booth Grey, brother to the Earl of 

 Stamford. The hounds here alluded to were from I^ord 

 Stamford's kennel. 



