CHAPTER XI 



How to feed Fox -hounds after a Hard Day's Work. — Reminiscences of 

 Hounds in bygone Days. — Quality versus Quantity. — Cure for the 

 Kennel Sickness. — Healthy Food. — When a dead Hoise may be 

 given to Fox-hounds, and when to Apple Trees. — A little Romance 

 in which the Author, a Horse, and a young lady play conspicuous 

 parts. 



Every naturalist, who has given his attention to the 

 consideration of the subject, must be aware that all 

 carnivorous animals require flesh of some sort to keep 

 them in health and vigour ; and although substitutes in 

 some cases may be used, yet the natural craving after 

 their appropriate food still remains ; in fact, the digestive 

 organs or stomachs of the camivora do not discharge 

 their functions regularly without it. 



Now it has often occurred to me to inquire why the 

 life of a fox-hound should be of so much shorter duration 

 than that of other dogs, which undergo quite as much 

 work, but subsist generally on scraps, bones, and offal, 

 and my impression is that the difference is to be attributed 

 to their different ways of living. Thin hquid food given 

 to fox-hounds (without meat) has certainly, according 

 to my ideas, the effect of weakening the digestive organs, 

 causing also an unnatural action of the kidneys, of which 

 every huntsman with common observation must be 

 aware. Oatmeal porridge is, we are quite free to admit, 

 one of the very best substitutes for animal food, which 

 strikes one at once as being exemplified in the powerful 

 frames of the Scotch and Irish labourers, who subsist 



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