HOURS OF FEEDING 121 



appointed time ; but should any unforeseen event inter- 

 pose, to prevent our eating at all until two or three more 

 hours had elapsed, what would be our feelings then ? 

 Those of a sinking and debilitating nature, and even 

 an indifference to food. 



For breakfast the slightest repast is with many men 

 sufficient, and the body, being refreshed by a good night's 

 rest, is in a state to undergo fatigue, without a great 

 amount of nourishment or food to feed the furnace ; but 

 after a day's exercise or work, the frame requires susten- 

 ance and support of a more substantial kind — the dinner, 

 in short, being the great meal of the day. With this 

 idea, I began feeding my hounds late in the day during 

 the hunting season, and my argument ran thus : — My 

 hounds, being accustomed to dine at a late hour, will 

 not begin to feel lean when they find their second or third 

 fox at two or three o'clock, the chances being in favour 

 of their having made a breakfast off their first, and so 

 they would go comfortably on, running until dark, 

 without any qualms or queerishness about their stomachs, 

 or thinking about their dinner, which I have a notion 

 dogs do think about, although perhaps not quite so much 

 as their masters. Be that as it may, the experiment 

 answered my expectations, and my hounds would run 

 till midnight without faihng or flagging. 



In our country, and under our circumstances, two 



hard days awaited us in almost every week throughout 



the season, when we had to travel the hounds over night 



(a van being useless in our by-roads), and left off hunting 



seldom under twenty miles from home, and sometimes 



thirty. On those days the hounds rarely returned to 



the home kennels until nine o'clock at night. The 



temporary kennel, from which we hunted our Leicestershire 

 Kf 



