30 HUNTING DIRECTORY. 



Appendages to the Kennel. 



"At the back of the kennel is a house, thatched and 

 furzed up on the sides, big enough to contain at least a 

 load ^f straw. Here should be a pit ready to receive 

 the dung, and a gallows for the flesh. The gal-lows 

 should have a thatched roof, and a circular board at the 

 posts of it, to prevent vermin from climbing up. 



"A stove,* I believe, is made use of in some kennels; 

 but where the feeder is a good one, a mop, properly 

 used, will render it unnecessary. I have a little hay- 

 rick in the grass-yard, which I think is of use to keep 

 the hounds clean and fine in their coats ; you will find 

 them frequently rubbing themselves against it : the shade 

 of it also is useful to them in summer. If ticks at any 

 time should be troublesome in your kennel, let the walls 

 of it be well washed ; if that does not destroy them, the 

 walls should then be whitewashed. 



* I cannot agree with Beckford that stoves are unnecessary ; on the 

 contrary, as nothing is more conducive to the health of hounds than 

 ' w-armth, so the introduction and use of stoves in newly-built or damp 

 tennels must be of the most essential utility. In the year 1825, Sir Bel- 

 lingham Graham's hounds took possession of 3 new kennel built near 

 Shrewsbury ; many of them soon afterwards became lame in the shoulder, 

 and continued to get worse in defiance of the application of various means 

 for their restoration : the disease spread — it might justly be called an epi- 

 demic; the progress of which was ultimately arrested by the introduction 

 of stoves. — This lameness in the shoulder is by no means a new disease ; 

 it has frequently shewn itself, and indeed occasionally made considerable 

 havock ; yet. upon investigation, 1 am inclined to think, that it has seldom, 

 if ever, been known in dry, warm kennels. Like the rheumatism in the 

 human subject, it is brought on by humidity or cold, or both ; and, like 

 that disease, is only to be removed by the administration of heat But, as 

 a preventative is preferable to a cure, so, therefore, are stoves to be recom- 

 mended as a certain method of obviating lameness in the shoulder, which, 

 to say the least of it, renders a hound completely useless. 



