“From the foregoing remarks, it will be seen how great an influence food has upon animals called upon to exert such violent labour as foxhounds are. The comparisons of the duration of life, when deprived of food, between the bird and the serpent, I apprehend, relates to birds whose nature it is to feed upon grain only, because the carnivorous birds live much longer without food, their respiration being slower: and I infer by this that the power of endurance in hounds, and their perfection of wind and condition, are regulated by feeding them with a due proportion of flesh, which, prepared by being boiled, is converted at once into blood. “All animals partaking of a mixed diet, partly of grain, will be greatly influenced in their respiratory organs by the proportions which are given to them and the state of the atmosphere. The quality of the blood being regulated by the quantity and the quality of food consumed, its capability of passing through the lungs is governed. When an animal has partaken largely of food which renders the blood of that character as to cause the consumption of a great quantity of oxygen in its passage through the lungs, and the atmosphere is deficient of that important gas--which is always the case in close damp weather, such as is occasionally experienced during the winter--it follows, as a matter of course, that hounds, and all such animals, will quickly evince symptoms of distress, or, familiarly speaking, will become blown, as the causes which produce that effect predominate. “In hot climates man consumes very little, if any, animal food; in cold ones, scarcely anything else: and the Esquimaux will partake of blubber, animal oils, or fat--a food nauseating and disgusting to the people of another climate. “With these facts it becomes apparent how the quantity and quality of food require to be regulated by circumstances, especially on the day before hunting. “There are few, if any, masters of hounds or huntsmen who are not aware of the necessity of giving small proportions of flesh during the warm weather at the commencement of the season, and again in the spring, when such a condition of the atmosphere generally prevails as that which we so universally experience during the months of November, December, and January. Without a certain proportion of flesh, it is well known that hounds cannot work; that is to say, they cannot go through the fatigues of a quick burst or a protracted chase; at the same time, too large a quantity will render them gross and plethoric, consequently incapable of exertion.