THOUGHTS UPON HUNTING. 2^9 



merit. A few riotous and determined hounds do a deal 

 of mischief in a pack. Never, when you can avoid it, 

 put them among the rest ; let them be taken out by 

 themselves, and well chastised ; and, if you find them in- 

 corrigible, hang them. The common saying, Evil com- 

 munications corrupt good manners, holds good with regard 

 to hounds ; they are easily corrupted. The separating of 

 the riotous ones from those which are steady, answers 

 many good purposes : — it not only prevents the latter 

 from getting the blood which they should not, but it also 

 prevents them from being over-awed by the smacking of 

 whips, which is too apt to obstrud: drawing and going 

 deep into cover. — A couple of hounds, which I received 

 from a neighbour last year, were hurtful to my pack : 

 they had run with a pack of harriers, andj 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 a morning. The pack, at last, got so much blood, that 

 they would hunt them as if they were designed to hunt 

 nothing else. I parted with that couple of hounds ; and 

 the others, by proper management, are become as steady 

 as they were before. You will remind me, perhaps, that. 



