FORMING A PACK OF HAHHIERS. 225 



wholesome food, and the adoption of a more gene- 

 rous diet. At the present price of corn, good 

 oatmeal ought to be purchased for about sixteen 

 shillings per hundred-weight, which, allowing half- 

 a-pound of dry meal to each hound (sufficient for 

 one of small size), would amount to about a penny 

 a head daily. 



Unless a pack of harriers can be purchased, the 

 difficulty of forming one from drafts will be great ; 

 and if discarded fox-hounds are worth little, even 

 from very large kennels, draft harriers are worth 

 nothing beyond the value of their skins. In my 

 day, fifty pounds was considered a large sum for 

 a good pack, consisting of twenty couples ; and the 

 price of the article fluctuates, like that of other 

 purchasable commodities, according to the supply 

 in the market, sometimes descending to a very low 

 figure indeed. A friend of mine told me he 

 bought a lot of harriers not many years ago, at a 

 public sale, for five shillings a couple ; and I heard 

 of another gentleman, who being obliged to give 

 up hare-hunting, on account of a large game pre- 

 server having purchased the adjoining manor, and 

 forbidding him his usual beat over the ground, 

 finding it impossible to dispose of his hounds at 

 any price, or even give them away, turned the lot 

 adrift into the home preserve of this money-made 



