284 HOW TO PROCURE IT. 



flushed with conquest, are not easily withstood. 

 What we call ill luck, day after day, when 

 hounds kill no foxes, may frequently, I think, 

 be traced to another cause, viz. their being out 

 of blood ; nor can there be any other reason as- 

 signed why hounds, which we knaw to be good, 

 should remain so long as they sometimes do 

 without killing a fox,* Large packs are least 

 subject to this inconvenience : hounds that are 

 quite fresh, and in high spirits, least feel the 

 want of blood. The smallest packs, therefore, 

 should be able to leave at least ten or twelve cou- 

 ple of hounds behind them, to be fresh against 

 the next hunting day. If your hounds are 

 much out of blood, give them rest : take this 

 opportunity to hunt with other hounds, to see 

 how they are managed, to observe what stallion 

 hounds they have, and to judge yourself whe- 

 ther they are such as it is fit for you to breed 

 from or not. If what I have now recommended 

 should not succeed ; if a little rest and a fine 

 morning do not put your hounds into blood again, 

 I know of nothing else that will ; and you must 

 attribute your ill success, I fear, to another cause. 



* A pack of hounds that had been a month without kill- 

 ing a fox, at last ran one to gro\uid, which they dug, and 

 killed upon the earth : the next seven days that they hunted, 

 they killed a fox each day. 



