122 ENDURANCE OF HOUNDS 



Country, was distant fourteen miles from home, to 

 which the hounds and horses travelled the evening 

 previous to hunting. We had then from four to ten 

 miles further to go to our places of meeting the following 

 morning, and it so happened that our foxes seldom ran 

 homewards, the main earths lying in the other direction, 

 so that, at the close of each day, we had twenty miles 

 — never less — to travel through by-lanes before the 

 hounds could get their dinner. This work for a continu- 

 ance throughout the season (our pack being so short 

 that the same hounds often hunted three days a week), 

 it may easily be imagined, was very severe ; and my 

 impression is that no pack of the present day, under the 

 present treatment, would or could undergo this wear 

 and tear of frame and constitution without exhibiting 

 the appearance of scarecrows. To our hounds, of course, 

 good legs and feet were as necessary (and these they 

 possessed in perfection) as stoutness of hmb and frame 

 and good constitution, and for their performances in the 

 field there are many still living in the old country who 

 can bear testimony to the sport afforded for nearly thirty 

 years by the now old Squire and his quondam pack. Sic 

 transit gloria mtmdi. 



The fashion now is to keep a large body of hounds, 

 which are fed lightly (nearly half-starved), to run a burst 

 in the morning, but they have not stamina to cope with 

 a stout afternoon fox. A few years since, a gentleman, 

 who kept a very large establishment of horses and hounds, 

 from ill-health resigned part of his outlying country, and 

 reduced his pack very considerably, intending to hunt 

 only two or three days a week ; but it so happened that 

 his neighbour resigned also soon afterwards, leaving his 

 country unoccupied. Under these circumstances, he was 



