NUMBER OF HOUNDS AND HOUSES. 199 



clone/' yet fox-hunting establishments are now 

 conducted on a scale far beyond moderation or 

 expediency. 



The number of hounds generally kept is not 

 only excessive, but that very excess prevents their 

 being used so often in the field as they ought to 

 be. From forty to fifty couples are quite sufii- 

 cient to hunt four days a week, as the hunting 

 pack need not exceed eighteen or twenty couples, 

 and they must undergo unusually severe work to 

 render them unfit to hunt two days a week during 

 the season. The same observation will apply to 

 horses, as a hunter which cannot go two days a 

 week, or tliree a fortnight, has no business in a 

 hunting establishment. Style and pace, however, 

 being the chief consideration now-a-davs, it would 

 be vain to expect young and fast men to listen to 

 the voice of experience, although for their inform- 

 ation I will add that in a three-days-a-week pro- 

 vincial country I found ten horses sufficient for 

 myself and two whippers-in, even in my fast days, 

 and the country we hunted was a severe one for 

 men, hounds, and horses. 



Having ventured to express an opinion that 

 foxes in those times were not only superior, but 

 of a different breed to those now in circulation 

 through the majority of hunting countries, I was 



