126 WHIMSICAL SITES FOR KENNELS. 



engender worms, rickets, and other maladies ; and 

 it may be laid down as a general rule that air and 

 exercise are essentials indispensable to all animals 

 in a state of gestation, from whom healthy and 

 vigorous offspring is expected. From the want of 

 these during the month of April, one season, when 

 absent from home, I lost five magnificent brood 

 bitches with their first litters, being kept confined 

 in the yard appropriated to them, instead of being 

 allowed to roam at large as soon as they became 

 heavy, which was my general practice. 



Exceptions there are to nearly every general 

 rule, and so in this case it may be objected that 

 this liberty of action cannot be accorded to brood 

 bitches in every locality, of which I am aware, 

 from the extraordinary situations in which we find 

 some kennels placed, close to villages, railway 

 stations, or in the vicinity of large game pre- 

 serves — Qiiot homines tot sententim ; and the sites 

 of many kennels are whimsical in the extreme, 

 reflecting little credit on the good sense or good 

 taste of their projector. A friend of mine, Avhen 

 he commenced keeping fox-hounds, although pos- 

 sessing very good kennels in a quiet, retired 

 situation, would persist in having them re- 

 moved and placed close to his lodge gate, near a 

 turnpike road, by which the old hoimds were con- 



