THOUGHTS UPON HUNTING. Ilg 



whippers-in can then get at them ; can always see what 

 they are at ; and 1 have no doubt that you may have 

 a pack of fox-hounds steady to ioyi by this means, 

 without adopting so preposterous a method as that of 

 first making hare-hunters of them. You will find that 

 hounds, thus taught wiiat game they are to hunt, and 

 what they are not, v/ill stop at a word ; because they will 

 understand you ; and, after they have been treated in this 

 fnanner, a smack only of the whip will spare you the in- 

 humanity of cutting your hounds in pieces (not very justly), > 

 for faults which you yourself have encouraged them to 

 commit. 



In your last letter you seem very anxious to get your 

 young hounds well blooded to fox, at the same time that 

 you talk of entering them at hare. How am I to reconcile 

 such contradidions ?— If the blood of fox be of so much 

 use, surely you cannot think the blood of hare a matter of 

 indifference, unless you should be of opinion that a fox is 

 better eating. You may think, perhaps, it was not intended 

 they should hunt sheep -, yet we very well know, that when 

 once they have killed sheep, they have no dislike to mutton 

 afterwards. 



