146 FOOD AND WARMTH 



in the kennel. To preserve that even state throughout 

 the pack so desirable, he must be well acquainted with 

 the appetite of every hound. While some will feed with 

 a voracity not exceeded by animal kind, others will 

 require enticing to their food. Delicate hounds may 

 generally be tempted with a little additional flesh, and 

 with the thickest and best of the trough, but they require 

 to be watched, and must not be fed all at once, but allowed 

 to dechne or return to their food according to inclina- 

 tion.*' Now, as The Noble Science was pubhshed some 

 sixteen years after I had become a Master of Fox- 

 hounds, it is evident I could not have taken a leaf out 

 of this book on which to found my system of treating 

 hounds ; but it is a great satisfaction to find so clever 

 and experienced a Master corroborating my doctrine in 

 this respect. 



On the subject of warmth also we coincide, although 

 not as to the general use of the warm-bath. " It is absurd 

 to suppose that hounds will be more hardy and less liable 

 to the effects of bad weather if kept cold in kennel ; the 

 warmer and more comfortable they are kept within doors 

 the better they can battle with the elements. They 

 huddle all together on their litter, courting by every 

 means in their power the warmth by which all nature 

 is revived and nourished. No kennel is perfect without 

 the means of warm ventilation, which may easily be 

 supplied by flues, where the copper of the boiling-house 

 is contiguous, as it generally is, to the lodging-houses." 



A month previous to cub-hunting, the young hounds 

 should be prepared for their work by long exercise, and 

 trotting briskly along with the horses over turf or through 

 grassy lanes, which may be increased to a gallop at last 

 when an opportunity occurs for stretching their hmbs 



