THE HOUR OF FEEDING 123 



solicited to draw some of the best coverts to prevent the 

 foxes being destroyed ; to which he consented, hunting 

 as before, four days a week, with half the usual comple- 

 ment of hounds — sixteen couples being all he could 

 muster at the place of meeting ; but the result was the 

 very best season's sport he had ever had. The hounds 

 were highly fed to keep them up to the mark, and had 

 never shown themselves to such advantage before. 

 Although " the more the merrier," the few make the 

 better cheer, and a large body of hounds in the field is 

 truly a very useless incumbrance, often marring instead 

 of making sport. I had as much fun when, as a lad, I 

 could only muster eight couples at the covert side, as I 

 had in after-life when accompanied by eighteen. 



The usual hour of feeding hounds in most kennels now 

 being about eleven o'clock, they will naturally be sharp- 

 set before hunting the following morning, and, in my 

 opinion, anything but in a fit state to endure severe work ; 

 and this long abstinence, concluding they are not fed till 

 six o'clock the same evening, cannot fail to be prejudicial 

 to the health and constitutions of fox-hounds, and one 

 of the principal causes of their premature dechne. Thin 

 oatmeal porridge is of easy digestion for the stomach of 

 a dog, without the addition of animal food, when hard 

 work is before him ; and although all animals of prey 

 — lions, tigers, wolves, foxes, and wild dogs — feed only 

 once in the twenty-four hours, yet, as they live entirely 

 upon flesh and bones, their food requires some time for 

 digestion, and they generally remain in a quiescent state 

 during the whole day. This rule, therefore, cannot be 

 applicable to dogs in an artificial state, particularly when 

 their frames are subjected to such protracted exertions ; 

 and I am quite satisfied, from practical experience, that 



