PRELIMINARIES 147 



over open downs, by which you wiU be enabled to judge 

 also of their speed and style of going ; but it must be 

 borne in mind that getting hounds as well as horses into 

 condition is a gradual process, from walking to trotting, 

 and last of all galloping. Many huntsmen, however, 

 commence without any such preliminary training, working 

 their hounds into condition, rather than take the trouble 

 to get them into condition to work, and from this 

 negligence the hounds suffer very severely sometimes in 

 their first day's hunting, particularly should the weather 

 be hot and the ground hard, which is generally the case 

 during the month of August and beginning of September, 

 Cub-hunting is, in my opinion, the most trying period 

 in the whole hunting season to a pack of fox-hounds, 

 when more toes are sprung or let down than in any other 

 month of the year. The menses or tracks in woodlands 

 have also to be broken through at the expense of severe 

 laceration to the hounds employed in this service. A 

 blackthorn sticking in one's knee or leg does not cause 

 a very agreeable sensation at any time, although to a 

 sportsman in hard condition it occasions little incon- 

 venience, and may be easily extracted, but in fat or 

 flabby flesh this little thorn would create a considerable 

 amount of inflammation ; and so it is with hounds, if 

 properly prepared they will suffer little from scratches 

 of briars or pricks of thorns. The condition of a fox- 

 hound may be tested by a short, smart gallop over the 

 turf, when if, on being pulled up, his mouth shuts almost 

 immediately, he may be considered very near the mark ; 

 but if, on the contrary, his tongue continues hanging out, 

 he is not fit to go or work. At the commencement of 

 cub-hunting I Hke to see the frame well covered with 

 sound hard flesh, and the muscles full, which are quite 



