Kalendar, s. An account of time.
Kaw, v. To cry as a raven, crow, or rook.
Kayle, s. Ninepins; nine holes.
Keen, a. Sharp, well edged: severe, piercing; eager, vehement; acrimonious; bitter of mind.
Keg, s. A small barrel, commonly used for a fish barrel.
Kell, s. The omentum, that which inwraps the guts.
Kennel, s. A cot for dogs; a number of dogs kept in a kennel; the hole of a fox, or other beast; the water-course of a stream.
Kennel.—Is the place where hounds are kept; upon the judicious construction of which, their health, safety, and preservation, are known greatly to depend. Those who take to, or become possessed of, kennels ready built, frequently continue them in the form they fall into their hands; but such as encounter the expense of new erections, cannot do better than take a previous survey of the most approved plans; amongst which the Duke of Bedford’s at Woburn Abbey; the Duke of Richmond’s at Goodwood, in Sussex; and Sir William Rawley’s at Tendring Hall, Suffolk, are supposed, for extent and convenience, to take the lead of most others in the kingdom. Taste and fashion may go a great way in the external glare of such establishments; but health and convenience should always prove the most predominant considerations. It is universally admitted, by all who have a practical knowledge of this subject, that in large and regularly hunted packs, two kennels are indispensably necessary to the success and well doing of the whole. When there is but one, it can in the winter season be but seldom cleaned; and even then the hounds are in a comfortless state, from the dampness of the situation so long as it remains. Cleanliness is so essentially necessary in every apartment and department of a kennel, that no continuance of health in the hounds, or excellence in the field, can be expected without it. They are individually innately clean; and will never, if they can avoid it, dung near where they lie. Air, fresh straw, and ample room for the occasional expansion of their weary limbs, are requisite for the invigoration of the frame, and the preservation of health. Hounds confined in a body are more liable to disease than the same animal single, and in a state of unrestrained liberty; hence the necessity for counteraction, by every means the most prudent precaution can adopt. Hounds thus subject to, and constantly attacked with disease, and even madness, under the best and most judicious management, must be evidently much more so if surrounded with filth and nastiness.
That some idea may be formed of the grandeur of the buildings, and the liberal scale, of the most celebrated hunting establishments, it is only necessary to introduce a few explanatory remarks upon the kennels of eminence already mentioned. The superb edifice of the Duke of Richmond is said (and probably with great truth) to have cost £10,000, in its erection; to which his Grace contributed no small proportion of personal assistance. He is reported to have been his own architect and builder; to have dug his own flints, burnt his own lime, made his own bricks, and framed the woodwork in his own shops. The dog kennel, abstracted from all other buildings, stands alone, in such part of the park as to form a grand and striking object from the principal rooms of the mansion; the materials are flints, finished at all the angles by a light grey-brick, like the Lymington white stock.
The distribution of the building is into five compartments: two of them thirty-six feet by fifteen, and three more thirty by fifteen; these are called kennels, to which are annexed two feeding rooms, twenty-eight by fifteen. In each of these are openings at top, for the admission of external air when necessary, and stoves to qualify the air when too cold. There are supplies of water, and drains into a tank a considerable depth below, full of rain water, from the surface of which to the rise of the arch is eleven feet, so that no inconvenience arises from smell, and the whole can be occasionally cleared off by drains to more dependent depths and dung pits, where it becomes contributory to the purposes of agriculture. Round the whole building is a pavement five feet wide; airing yards, places for breeding, and other conveniences, making a part of each wing. To constitute a uniformity of elegance, neatness, and perfection, the huntsman and whipper-in have each a parlour, kitchen, and sleeping-room, appropriated to their own particular purpose.