■H0UGHT5 UPON HUNTING. 



LETTER .XXIL 



3^7 



ARE not your expedlations somewhat too sano-uine,, 

 when you think that you shall have no occasion for ba^-^ 

 foxes to keep your hounds in blood the first season ? — It 

 may be as well, perhaps, not to turn them all out, till 

 you can be -more certain that your young pack will keep 

 good and steady without them. When blood is much 

 wanted, and they are tired with a hard day, one of these 

 foxes will put them into spirits, and give them, as it were, 

 new strength and vigour. 



You desire to know. What I call being out 'of blood? — In 

 answer to which, 1 must tell you, that, in my judgment, 

 no fox-hound can fail of killing more than three or four 

 times following, without being visibly the worse for it. 

 When hounds are out of blood, there is a kind of evil ge- 

 nius attending all that theydo; and, though they may seem 

 to hunt as well as ever, they do not get forward j — while 



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