WILL. NEVERD AND HIS "QUICKSILVER BALLS.' 71 



instead of inside their bellies which it would have 

 been had they been fed at three or four o'clock in the 

 afternoon of the day before. Some whose digestion 

 is weak, void their food nearly in the same state as 

 they swallow it, and many, from the same cause, are 

 constantly in tlie habit of throwing part of their meat 

 off immediately after feeding; it is quite curious 

 to see how such hounds are continually watched by 

 the others, to whom they are as well known as the 

 pieman would be, near the gates of a school ; for 

 what purpose I leave my readers to guess. When 

 hounds lose their appetites, and when they are in 

 the habit of throwing off part of their meat imme- 

 diately after feeding, it is a certain sign that the 

 digestive organs are impaired; this frequently happens 

 to puppies, when recovering from the effects of the 

 distemper, and even the older ones whose consti- 

 tutions are none of the strongest, are at times afflicted 

 with dyspepsia ; it arises generally from too great an 

 acidity in the contents of the stomach, to which all 

 animals whose aliment is mixed with vegetable matter, 

 are more or less liable. This tendency in the stomach 

 to produce acid may be obviated by avoiding acescent 

 aliments, and substituting animal food, which is not 

 so likely to excite undue fermentation; this is evident, 

 by turning those hounds out of the kennel, which 

 have become sickly and dyspeptic, to feed on raw 

 flesh, when they almost invariably in a few days 

 become sleek and fat. This plan, however, if for 

 a long time, or very frequently pursued, is not the 

 most likely means of either getting them into con- 

 dition or keeping them so, even if they were in such 



