228 WILD LIFE OF SCOTLAND 



The element of sport has introduced a new 

 classification, and a new natural history creed, to 

 which we are forced to subscribe, whether we will 

 or no. The entire animal creation now falls into 

 the three arbitrary divisions of game, vermin, and 

 those intermediate forms, which rank as game, or 

 vermin according to the nature of the ground, 

 and the sporting habits, and traditions of the 

 place. And the disposition is to treat vermin as 

 if they were of no interest to the age, and had no 

 further claim to existence. 



The fox of the hill, and the fox of the plain are 

 two well jnarked varieties. The latter is carefully 

 preserved, and petted for sporting purposes; and 

 coverts are carefully made or left for him. The 

 former is an arrant poacher, meriting only short 

 shrift. 



Though space and law the stag we lend, 

 Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend, 

 Whoever reck'd where, how, or when, 

 The prowling fox was trapped and slain. 



Still he is a picturesque nuisance, by far the 

 finer creature of the two, both in body and spirit. 

 If he is descended from the other ; then, generations 

 of life in the open have given length to his limbs, 

 and freedom to his bound, and absolved him from 

 the low, cunning, and skulking gait, begot of 



