must have been resorted to. They are of many colours, but I have found none better than the mealy reds and the blues. This bird is, in my opinion, equal to the horseman in sagacity and speed, and altogether I prefer them to any other kind. The pigeon loft should always, if possible, face the west or south, be high and roomy, with railed pens to shut in birds for matching in the spring, or other purposes, kept well lime-washed, which will both destroy the insects and keep it cool, and it should be repeatedly cleaned out. A glass tile or two in the roof, if a slanting one, will be useful to light the loft. There must be a railed trap projecting in front, so that the birds may go out from the loft, and the front of the trap will let down and pull up by means of a spring inside. This is called the dormer, and in most large lofts is out of the top of the roof. When the trap is shut the birds will come in at two wires which open inwards to the loft on a pivot which is called the bolting wire. Of course in stocking a loft all depends upon its size, and the taste of the fancier. I should say six couples of strong horsemen and dragoons, and two couple of beards well matched, and purchased in the spring, will be a good breeding supply. These must be shut in the loft for breeding, and the young birds flown. They will begin breeding about the end of February, and continue till October. I would however for flying, save no birds till May. The old bird sits eighteen days, and the male relieves the female. Peas form their chief food, but tares will be found best for the young ones till they leave the nest. While matching the birds, give a little hemp-seed. Often before the young ones can leave the nest the old birds will lay again. As soon as the young can fly they should be allowed to bask on the dormer, and when they have gained confidence they will join the flight. After they have become well accustomed to the loft and are able to keep pretty well with the flight, take them about half a mile from the loft in a bag (made of coarse canvass to hold two birds with a little straw), and toss them : repeat the same distance for a few days, and gradually increase it up to five miles: After this they are pretty perfect, and two or three miles may be added to the distance each day. If your loft be near a high road a great advantage will be found by giving the birds to the coachmen to toss. There are many ways of marking birds. I generally make a little notch in the beak or between the toes in the same manner as game fowls. A little stamp with the initials of the name to mark them in red ink on the tail or pinion feathers, will be useful till the birds moult. In tossing a bird, always clear its wings and feet, and, holding it round the body and legs with one hand, throw it well up; never near any trees as the young ones will frequently perch and there remain. The speed of the carrier has perhaps never been fully ascertained. I have had them come seven miles (by the road) in five minutes, and forty miles in the hour is commonly done, but too much depends upon circumstances to give any certain opinion. If a bird is going to do a long distance it should never be over fed the night previous, but shut it in a dark pen. If possible, choose a clear day for tossing, nothing beats pigeons like wind and fog. A real carrier will rarely stop till he reaches home. If they are regularly flown, well-fed, and watered, and kept clean, few diseases will be known in the loft. Let them have a large tin pan to wash in (change the water every day), and a lump of salt to peck at. Many use a salt car, which is a mixture of salt, mortar, and other ingredients; but this is more frequently resorted to as a lure for stray birds than as a fair practice in the loft. The canker in the wattle is their worst disease, and frequently arises from dirt, or the birds fighting. The best cure is a piece of bitter aloes the size of a pea, given inwardly, and the day after wash the wattle with warm water, and in the evening dress the sore with bol ammoniac and burnt alum, mixed with lemon juice, till cured. Tobacco smoke will be found useful to clear the loft from vermin. The value of birds will frequently depend more on the fancy of the buyer than their real merit. In first stocking a loft, I would never be too particular about price, as a good breeding stock is more than half the battle. It would be difficult to affix any price as a general guide. I have known horsemen fetch £5. a pair, though good ones may be bought for £2., and dragoons will fetch all prices from 5s. to £2. a couple. Beards are usually the cheapest, and the Antwerps are to be bought at but few fanciers, and frequently fetch good prices. Of course much depends upon the shape and colour, but birds of a good strain will always fetch their value among the fancy. I shall confine my remarks to the flyers, and say nothing about the toy birds, which include powters, tumblers, jacobins, and many other species which by their respective fanciers are held in as high estimation as the best carriers. Of the whole species powters fetch the longest prices. An amateur, who has never attended a London pigeon show, would be astonished at the prices set on the birds by their owners; and I know no prettier sight than a pen of good horsemen or dragoons. Like all other fancies, that of the pigeon will be found both troublesome and expensive, but this will be fully compensated for, by the amusement afforded in rearing and flying the birds, and I think that every real lover of this bird will agree with me, that an hour may be spent much less profitably and usefully, than in the pigeon loft, Your's, &c., Тоно. Notitia Venatica. No. V. BY ACTEON. ON THE ACCIDENTS AND DISEASES TO WHICH HOUNDS ARE SUBJECT, AND THEIR CURES. "Morborum quoque te causas et signa docebo."-GEORG. III. Ir may be justly remarked, that not one of the various improvements upon which modern sportsmen can congratulate themselves, has rendered greater benefit to society in general than the rapid advancement which veterinary surgery has made during the 19th century. That dangerous and disgusting character, the old fashioned drunken and ignorant farrier, has become obsolete, and a well educated and enlightened body of men have sprung up in that niche, which has so long been waiting for them. The horse, however, has almost entirely engrossed the whole of the attention of the profession, until within a short time; but during the few last years, that most useful, interesting, and companionable animal the dog, has gradually been creeping up into the notice of those professional men who practise in the metropolis. And if we may judge of what we read in the sporting periodicals, the rising generation of veterinary surgeons seem anxious, not only to make the diseases of the horse their study; but also to extend their exertions and enquiries to those maladies and accidents, to which not only the canine race, but also all other domesticated animals are liable. Although hunting has been the most fashionable amusement, amongst the gentry of England, for many centuries; strange it is, that the management of the hound, upon which animal all the hopes of success in the chase entirely depend, has been too frequently entrusted to a class of men, whose gross ignorance, in many instances, has only been surpassed by their obstinacy. That some huntsmen are exceedingly skilful in their vocation, and eminently successful in their treatment of many of the diseases with which hounds are afflicted, all must admit; but the generality of them are ignorant and uneducated men, who by an indiscriminate and injudicious application, often ruin the credit of medicines and processes, which in good hands, might otherwise have succeeded to the utmost wishes of the most sanguine. Such self taught and conceited fellows, invariably call to my recollection, Sir W. Scott's well drawn character NO. XCVIII.-VOL. XVI. 3 A of Wayland Smith, to whom he has very aptly applied the following words of Persius : "Dilius helleborum, certo compescere puncto, Nescius examen. which has thus been translated :— "Wilt thou mix helebore, who doth not know When a dog recovers from any dangerous disease or accident, it is generally attributed to the efficacy of the remedy, and to the great skill with which the medicine or application has been used; but nine times in ten the poor animal, if he could reflect within himself, and speak the real and stubborn truth, would tell us that it was his tough and invincible constitution, with which nature has gifted him, which has borne him through, not only the trying effects of the disease, but also the still more dangerous consequences of cruelly misapplied nostrums and operations. Nine country veterinary surgeons out of ten, even in the most simple cases, when called in, profess the utmost ignorance of the diseases connected with the kennel; and as the knowledge of anatomy, which generally falls to the share of even the most enlightened sportsman is very limited, the cure or rather the attempt at cure is generally carried on in the dark, and at the utmost hazard of life or recovery. In the management of not only my own hounds, but also of numerous pointers and other sporting dogs, for the space of about nineteen years, the chief assistance upon which I could rely, has been the recipes and advice of those huntsmen, whom I considered the most intelligent and experienced; where receipts have succeeded, I have continued to use them, but have invariably rejected those which might fail in their operations; as to the veterinary surgeons I never could prevail upon one in any instance to attempt to assist me, either with regard to the use of different kinds of medicines, or in the performance of any common operation which might be necessary; but a medical gentleman* in very high practice in the neighbourhood where I resided, and with whom I was upon terms of intimacy, constantly assisted me, not only in many and frequent operations upon my hounds, but also in the choice of divers medicines and other remedies. I have read attentively nearly every sporting book, that has ever been published since the "Gentleman's Recreation," but with little benefit to myself, as I have seldom, if ever, met with one single instance of any recipes succeeding, which I may have been induced to try. The only book from which I have derived the least information, is one entitled "Canine Pathology," by Mr. Blaine; and I must confess, that that book stands alone amongst the many which have been foisted upon the public, as one which may be entirely depended upon; no sportsman should * I. Kemble, Esq. Knowle. be without it; it gives not the effects of theoretical and inexperienced advice, but the effusions of the understanding of a man who has made the study of the diseases of the dog his chief pursuit, and who has most eminently succeeded in the undertaking. When compared with the horse the dog is subject but to few maladies, this is in a great measure owing to the coldness of his temperament, the hardiness of his constitution, and the great strength of his digestive powers. He is seldom attacked with inflammation, although cases of enteritis or inflammation of the bowels are sometimes to be met with. Inflammation in the eyes, although not so frequent as one might expect, from the continual and laborious occupation which dogs of all descriptions are doomed to undergo when working in cover, is generally of not so formidable a character, as when that member meets with severe injury in the horse; still it is attended with much danger, and the total loss of the organ is sometimes the consequence of a puncture from a thorn or a misaimed blow from the lash of a whip. The distemper, which is the first disease to which hounds are generally subject, is in the opinion of all men the most fatal which has ever discovered itself in the canine race; thousands are annually swept off by this dreadful plague, and as it breaks out in so many various forms, the possibility of finding remedies to counteract it is rendered far more difficult. In the report of the veterinary medical association for March, 1838, a Mr. Simonds, in expressing his congratulations at the prospect of the diseases of dogs becoming the subject of enquiry amongst the veterinarians of the present day, goes on to say, that, "distemper is primarily an affection of the Schneiderian membrane; thence, in certain constitutions, it is transmitted to the lungs, and we have pneumonia in one of its various forms; sometimes to the intestines, and we have diarrhoea and dysentery, and sometimes by simple proximity, or through the medium of the ethmoidal processes it attacks the brain, and we have epilepsy;" and very justly adds, “it is clear that we have no specific for such a disease." There certainly is no specific for the dis temper; and not unfrequently, the very medicine which is given to one dog which recovers, when administered to another will cause imme diate death I have tried numbers of remedies upon dogs of all ages and conditions, many I have cured, or rather fancied I have cured, and hundreds I have seen sink under the disease, even when they have been attended with the strictest care and attention. Vaccination was considered, a few years since, as a certain preventive; but I have been credibly informed, that the disciples of this foolish doctrine are daily on the decrease. The only trial I have ever given this remedy failed, as the puppies, upon which I operated, all sickened soon after and died, they were a litter of four spaniels; they were vaccinated inside the |