HUNTING DIRECTORY. 57 



Diseases of Hounds. 



Dogs, and young ones in particular, should be kept 

 in the country. If when a whelp be taken from its dam, 

 it is fed upon light food, such as potatoes and buttermilk, 

 with a little oatmeal, &c. and seldom or never indulged 

 with carrion, or flesh of any kind, it will scarcely ever be 

 attacked with the distemper, a disease which has been 

 long known in this country, and which makes frightful 

 havock amongst dogs bred in towns, highly fed, and which 

 have little exercise : — exercise in particular is a very es- 

 sential requisite to the health of young dogs. 



Hounds are subject to all the disorders to Avhich dogs 

 in general are liable, and there are several diseases which 

 would appear peculiar to them, which will be pointed 

 out in their proper place in the course of the following 

 pages. 



Young hounds, however, placed at good quarters, are 

 little liable to disease ; but are much more subject to ill- 

 ness when taken into the kennel. I shall give a list of the 

 diseases to which hounds are hable whether in or out of 

 the kennel ; in which, I am sorry to say, I shall be able 

 to derive little, if any, assistance from Beckford ; since 

 his notions on the subject are crude, and his method of 

 treatment, in a great degree, erroneous. 



Wild animals reclaimed from a state of nature and do- 

 mesticated, are susceptible of great change and variety 

 in form, colour, and character ; and owing no doubt ta 

 being thus compelled to assume in some degree, an arti- 

 ficial mode of life, they are rendered more liable to dis- 

 orders. Animals in a state of nature are little subject to 

 disease : and though the wild dog subsists on flesh and 

 carrion, it is more than probable he is never troubled, 



D 



