desirable. Now, hounds must throw off, even though the possibility of sport is quite out of the question. Frost and snow are the only excuses, and they are not almost admitted without grumbling: wind, which is worse than either, is not allowed; hence we sometimes see gentlemen nearly blown from their horses in the enjoyment of the chase! Can anything be more ridiculous than a hunting-field in a hurricane?

Another great advantage of not advertising hounds was, that all, save members, were intruders; and each member knowing the weak points of the establishment, not only assisted in counteracting their development, but had an interest in concealing them. Added to this, they were all sportsmen-there was no straining for effect-no forced appearance kept up; and the generality of the followers of hounds being denizens of the country, there was far less damage done to crops, fences, and land, than there is now that the Archimedian screw is applied to get subscriptions, and each reluctant 'payer thinks himThe self entitled to do as much damage as he likes for his money. subject of "The Chase," however, will admit of another paper on a future day, we having already exceeded our limits for this month.

NOTITIA VENATICA.

BY R. T. VYNER, ESQ.

CHAPTER III.-ON FEEDING.

Much has been said by various theoretical authors upon feeding hounds upon different kinds of food, each recommending his own peculiar plan as the best; the proof positive, however, derived from one's own experience will bear out every argument upon the subject. In former days hounds were fed chiefly, if not entirely, upon raw flesh; but times have altered, and improvements in kennel economy, as well as in most other departments, have been introduced. In my early days I have repeatedly seen harriers fed by calling then into six or seven large joints of flesh, instead of to the trough; and the warm entrails of a fresh-killed horse were considered a grand restorative to tired hounds after a long day's hunting. In an old book entitled, "The Gentleman's Recreation," the author, in the oldfashioned and quaint language of the seventeenth century, in ecommending flesh as good food for hounds, says, that horseflesh is the best and hottest; but strictly cautions any one from giving it with the skin on, "lest your dogs, discerning the hair, may fall on them when alive in the field." In the New Sporting Magazine, some few years since, a writer Dashwood recommended the use of mange do extremely well for fattening pigs or riers which did not work very hard: of exertion are taxed to a much g

would

never answer. I have used at various times many different kinds of meal, but am thoroughly convinced by experience that nothing will answer to feed foxhounds on but the best old oatmeal. Beckford has no objection to barley-flour mixed with the oatmeal, and gives the following method for mixing and preparing it. In speaking of the preparation of food for hounds, he says: "I have inquired of my feeder, who is a good one (and has had more experience in these matters than any one you may perhaps get), how he mixes up his meat. He tells me that, in his opinion, oatmeal and barley mixed, an equal quantity of each, make the best meat for hounds. The oatmeal he boils for half an hour, and then puts out the fire, puts the barley into the copper, and mixes both together. I asked him why he boiled one and not the other; he told me boiling, which made oatmeal thick, made barley thin; and that when you feed with barley only, it should not be put into the copper, but be scalded with the liquor, and mixed up in a bucket. I find there is in my kennel a large tub on purpose, which contains about half a hogshead." And in a few pages before the lines quoted, he says, “Oatmeal, I believe, makes the best meat for hounds; barley is certainly the cheapest, and in many kennels they give barley on that account; but it is heating, does not mix up so well, nor is there so much proof in it as in oatmeal. If mixed, an equal quantity of each, it will do very well; but barley alone will not." Thus we see that although Beckford has no objection to the occasional use of it, yet he by no means advises it for constant consumption. In the summer of

1834, when wheat was down at 15s. per bag (of three bushels), I tried that for some considerable time; but the hounds by no means did so well upon it as upon oatmeal. The only time that barley-flour can be recommended is in case of hounds being obliged to use new meal; a little, under such circumstances, well scalded (not boiled) and mixed in the trough with the oatmeal, will prevent the new meal from purging them, which it otherwise would do. The meal for the day's consumption should be brought immediately from the mealhouse, instead of having a quantity put into a bin made to hold sufficient for a week or a fortnight to save trouble; as old meal, as well as new, which has been lately moved, undergoes a process of fermentation, and invariably causes purging. It is highly reprehensible for any one to subject himself to such an inconvenience, particularly in the hunting season; and if any experiments are to be tried in feeding on different kinds of meal, it should be done during the summer months, as there would be a considerable risk in tampering with the constitutions of a pack of fox-hounds during work. Care should always be taken to have a stock of old oatmeal on hand, and to lay it in at a proper time. When the late Sir Harry Goodricke died, he had at his kennel at Thrussington (between Leicester and Melton) sufficient old oatmeal for three years' consumption, all from his own estates in Ireland. Sir Harry had nearly a hundred couples of hounds to feed, hunting five and six days a week, with a separate establishment of unentered puppies at Quorndon. Barley-flour by itself makes hounds scratch themselves and stare in their coats; and oatmeal which has been too highly dried on a kiln will have the same

effect upon them. When oatmeal has been adulterated with barleyflour, it is easily perceived when hounds are out, by their constantly leaving their work to lap water from the pits and ditches near at hand; it is also frequently adulterated with maize or Indian corn, a remarkably heating thing. The only plan to prevent being thus cheated, is to go to a really respectable tradesman, and give the best price. The Scotch meal is the best, that is if procured genuine ;* the Scotch are better farmers than the Írish, their harvest is generally better carried, and the oats are better and cleaner winnowed.†

Good wholesome flesh well boiled down and mixed with the pudding, is indispensable; and when I say good wholesome flesh, I mean not those poor devils that are more than half putrid before they are killed. The circumstance of hounds going suddenly off in their condition during the hunting season, may be attributed, in nine cases out of ten, to their having been fed with improper flesh. I know it is the practice to boil down everything that comes to some kennels (particularly such as are served by contract) in the shape of flesh, good or bad; and some huntsmen even put those hounds into the copper which have been destroyed, and declare that it is a certain cure for the distemper; but that is no reason why bad and tainted flesh should be used, when a good, fresh-killed horse can be obtained. I know one master of foxhounds who boasts that he has become quite callous to all that can be said about bad flesh, &c., and told me he once had a porpoise sent him by a neighbouring farmer, which he boiled up, blubber and all together, and that the hounds were not injured in any way during the time they were enjoying this most exquisite supply of turtle. I had a long conversation some months since with Mr. Cross, the great wild-beast proprietor, upon the different kinds of food used for the support of animals in confinement; and amongst the much useful and rational information imparted to me upon the subject, was that putrid or tainted flesh was one of the first, if not the chief thing to be guarded against in feeding animals; the next was to avoid feeding them to repletion. A less quantity of flesh is sufficient in summer; and although some teoretical sportsmen will tell you, that during the dead months hounds ought not to touch one morsel of flesh in any shape whatever, experience has convinced me that without a constant use of it, although in moderation, no pack of fox-hounds can be kept in real hard condition. If owners of all descriptions of hounds would feed them higher in the summer, and give them more strong exercise early in the morning than is generally the case, a tired hound would seldom be met with in the early part of the season, and the necessity of the use of styptic tinctures and sharp water would be nearly abolished from the kennel. When flesh cannot be obtained, a broth made of greaves may be used: it is a thing which all dogs are particularly fond of, and frequently the sick ones, which will not eat the common kennel-food, will feed

* The mealmen who supply the London tradesmen from the Scotch markets have been detected, as I was informed by a master of hounds in Scotland, in regrinding sand into the oatmeal.

The weight of a sack of oatmeal is twelve score pounds.

on that which is mixed with greaves; the giving them this broth will prevent their going off their feed, and losing their condition; nevertheless it should be given most sparingly, as nothing will render them foul in their bodies sooner if used for many days. A few pails of sweet skimmed milk may generally be obtained, during the days that flesh is scarce, from some neighbouring farm, which is an excellent substitute when they are not at work. In summer, when they have only their ordinary exercise, a day or two's short commons is not of much consequence; but, during hard work, one unwholesome meal, or half a belly-full, may waste them in the flesh, and lower their vigour and condition to such an extent, that it may take three weeks or a month Boiled flesh given in too great abundance causes the through hounds too quickly, and before it is thoroughly digested. After flesh is boiled down to rags, there is little or no virtue in it; and if I wanted hounds to be in brilliant form, when there superabundance of boiled flesh, I would have it thrown away rather than make use of it, especially the day before hunting.

to retrieve it.

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Some persons use biscuits occasionally during the summer months, but I should fancy no good judges would pursue this system for a very long time; having tried them myself, I can answer for their being by far more expensive than oatmeal, and by no means so nutritious. There are two kinds of biscuits: one, the common sea bread, that has been damaged either by age or salt-water, and sold as old stores by the ship-chandlers; the other is made on purpose for hounds and other sporting-dogs, of refuse meal of all sorts. Having no choice myself, I shall leave it to the reader, if he wishes to become a purchaser, to buy that which his fancy conceives to be the best. Sago is also advertised in some of the London papers, and recommended as good food for hounds; but not having tried it myself, and not even having heard of its being used for such a purpose before, I can give no account of it. Cabbages are frequently given by some huntsmen during the dead months; they are a most excellent and cooling addition to the food, but being expensive, are not always to be procured, particularly where the establishment is numerous. In that case, netts are a good substitute; they are very cooling, a strong antiscorbutic, and a diuretic, and their good effects will be evidently seen on the coats of the hounds, when they have been used for a week or ten days. Care should be taken to gather the young tops of the nettles, as when the stalks become old and hard, they are unwholesome and difficult to digest; a large sackful may be put into the copper daily, and boiled up with the flesh. The best way of procuring them is to set one of the old women, who may usually be employed in garden or field work, to gather them by the day, having first supplied her with a pair or two of strong gloves; she will be thus enabled to provide a constant succession of fresh nettles. Hounds, when heated, are remarkably fond of vegetables boiled up with their food; prompted, no doubt, by the strong inclination which nature never fails of exciting in scorbutic disorders for these powerful specifics. The boiler's or feeder's first care on entering his kennel in the morning should be invariably to take out two-thirds of the broth from the copper, which should be perpetually simmering, and pour it into a tub kept for that

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purpose, and then fill up the copper again previous to lighting the fire; he will then have plenty of good strong cold broth to cool the newly mixed food at feeding-time, instead of waiting for it to cool while half the morning is lost, or mixing it with cold water, which is a bad plan; as long as the broth is not sour nor burnt, it cannot be too strong nor too rich. The boilers, or coppers as they are generally called, should be made of cast-iron, and not of copper; if any liquid of a greasy or oily nature is allowed to remain in a copper vessel, it will produce verdigris, than which nothing can be a more deadly poison. In the year 1823, Mr. Shirley, of Eatington, Warwickshire, lost about twelve couples of hounds in one night, from eating flesh and broth which had been allowed to stand in a boiler which was made of copper.

There are some hounds which, more from habit than from constitution, have learned, from the method pursued by injudicious feeders, a trick of continually leaving the trough and passing behind the other hounds, while they slop the feed about in all directions, instead of filling their bellies, as they ought, with a good appetite; this is taught them by making a continual practice of indulging them by drawing them in four or five times, and coaxing them to feed, because they are naturally, perhaps, shyish feeders. The best plan is to draw a lot of all the delicate feeders first; before you begin, put them away, and, by making them wait till last, taking care to have some of the best food saved for them, you will soon perceive that they will become as good trencher-men as the rest of the hounds.

With regard to summer feeding, the system of using potatoes, cabbages, mangel-wurzel, &c., is excellent, provided it is not carried to excess. Oatmeal puddings should be made for constant use in the same manner as in winter; and the vegetables, nettles, &c., should be put into the flesh copper, and not boiled separate; and when the feed is mixed up, the first lot should be for the puppies, chiefly consisting of the pudding, and only sufficient vegetables to form a cooling diet, for if they are fed daily on potatoes and other rubbish, as is the case in some establishments, they will never throw out muscle, and furnish into fox-hounds as they ought to do, particularly when recovering from the ravages of the distemper. But with the old hounds it does not so much signify: if the contents of the meal-bin are fast diminishing, potatoes or ground oats may be substituted for a short time; and, with regard to those bitches which may be at large suckling whelps, neither they nor their young offspring should be served with the feed in which nettles or other vegetables have been mixed, as the worst consequences will, in all probability, be the result, but a small copper should be kept for their exclusive use during the breeding scason, where vegetables are used.

It is quite impossible to feed in good workmanlike style, or make the most of the meat, unless the ingredients are good of their kind, well prepared, and properly mixed. No department in the management of the kennel was considered of greater importance than the boiling and preparing the food, by that fine old sportsman, Mr. J. Warde, whose experience, both in feeding and breeding hounds, and whose opinion in all matters relating to the chase, stood amongst the