HUNTING DIRECTORY. 123 



Discipline. 



he has out. If your hounds are low in flesh, and have 

 far to go to cover, they may all have a little thin lap 

 again in the evening ; but this should never be done if 

 you hunt early. Hounds, I think, should be sharp-set 

 before hunting ; they run the better for it. 



*' I have heard that it is the custom in some kennels 

 to shut up the hounds for a couple of hours after they 

 come in from hunting, before they are fed ; and that 

 other hounds are shut up with them to lick them clean." 

 This is certainly "a custom more honoured in the breach 

 than the observance." It savours strongly of the old 

 school ; and has long been, I have reason to believe, 

 utterly abandoned. Surely, when hounds have under- 

 gone the fatigues of a day's hunting, having commenced 

 their operations too, fasting, nothing can be more reason- 

 able, or more consistent with the laws of nature, than 

 that they should fill their bellies immediately on their 

 return ; when they will not fail to retire comfortably to 

 rest. In the month of November or December, 1825, 1 

 visited the York and Ainsty fox-hounds. When in the 

 kennel, and talking with the huntsman (William Naylor) 

 he observed, that, on his return from hunting, he gene- 

 rally disturbed his hounds, half an hour perhaps after 

 having fed them, and walked them out, before he allowed 

 them to retire to rest for the night :^his motive for this 

 practise was in order to prevent lameness in the shoulder 

 (a disorder which has already been noticed) ; which he 

 thought arose from the hounds being suffered to repose 

 immediately after hard labour, from which stiffness en- 

 sued, and ulthnately lameness in the shoulder. There 

 may be something original in the idea ; but it is a mis- 



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