COLONEL COOK S OPINION. 45 



points, as the chief guide, a kennel may be built, and 

 properly arranged, providing the one great essential 

 be obtained, and that is a healthy situation. A kennel 

 may be complete in every other respect, — it may to 

 all appearance be warm in winter, and cool in sum- 

 mer, and replete with every sort of convenience ; but 

 the one thing may be wanting, namely, health. In 

 fact, it may have the greatest of all curses next to 

 madness to a pack of fox-hounds, kennel-lameness, or 

 shoulder-lameness, as it is sometimes called ; but 

 whether that is a proper name, remains to be proved, 

 as no one has ever satisfactorily defined it, nor given 

 positive proof whether the grief be situated in the 

 shoulders, or loins, or spine. The cause also of the 

 disease has never been clearly developed. Colonel 

 Cook has written but very little on the subject, and 

 the instances adduced are only relative to hounds 

 hunting in the New Forest. He has given some 

 reasons for their being lame ; the most probable one 

 is, the damp from the black bogs ; but, after all, he 

 comes to no decided conclusion. Another reason 

 which he gives for the malady is, their feet being con- 

 tinually pricked by the short stubby furze so prevalent 

 in the Nevv' Forest. I have experienced the same 

 annoyance myself, although not to so great an extent. 

 In part of the country which I hunted,* large fields 

 of gorse, where the land was poor, were grown for 

 the express purpose of cutting as food for cows. It 

 is mown once every year, and bruised in a mill, and 

 the stumps and prickles which are left behind are 

 a grievous impediment to hounds in chase. Although 



• Over Co'osbill Healh in Warwickshire. 



