EARLY FEEDING THE BEST. 69 



we may also read, that, in the islands of the Pacific 

 Ocean, dogs are bred-up on vegetables, and would 

 not eat the flesh, when offered them by our circumna- 

 vigators. Hounds should never be allowed to eat to 

 satiety ; Sir B. Graham, who at one time himself per- 

 formed the office of feeder, and whose authority on 

 matters relating to feeding and kennel management 

 was never doubted for a moment, considered it as 

 most injurious to condition, to allow them to fill them- 

 selves at the trough. It is the custom of some hunts- 

 men during the hunting-season to draw those hounds 

 which look thin, and give them some meat in the 

 afternoon ; I must confess it is a system I do not 

 admire, a hound fed at three or four o'clock in an 

 afternoon is totally unfit to run a burst at eleven 

 o'clock the next morning ; it is a much better plan to 

 make such as will not feed one day, wait till the next, 

 by that means they soon learn to feed at a proper 

 hour as they ought to do ; when animals reject their 

 food (depend upon it), there is a good reason for it, 

 and nothing is so good for the stomach when disor- 

 dered, as a little fasting ; such was the system pursued 

 by the great Napoleon, who preferred it to taking 

 medicine when unwell. When hounds, whose consti- 

 tutions are delicate, become a little below the mark, 

 the better plan is to let them miss one day's hunting, 

 by that means they will gain more vigour, than by 

 overloading their stomachs with food which will do 

 them more good when it is on their backs than it will 

 when it is inside their ribs. If you wish your hounds 

 to run well up, and at the same time to be stout in an 

 afternoon; keep them high in condition, always feed 



