12$ THE FOX 



goes in one way or other to benefit agriculture and the country, 

 even the game-preserver and poultry-farmer, inasmuch as these 

 industries must be pursued on cultural lines and not on out-of- 

 date practices. 



But fox-breeding must be excluded from the category of utility 

 to fox-hunters, game-preservers, and farmers when it is carried on 

 so as to preclude partridge shooting and the rearing of poultry 

 profitably, as was the case in Mid-Essex in 1906. At Leigh, mid- 

 way between Braintree and Chelmsford, an Essex hunt established 

 a breeding-ground for foxes upon eighteen acres of land hired 

 from the governors of Guy's Hospital, and here the foxes increased 

 at an abnormal rate, the object being to provide animals in this 

 enclosure to give sport for different hunting packs in the country. 

 The foxes lived there all through the year undisturbed, and those 

 placing them there not having provided means for their sustenance, 

 the foxes soon proved a scourge in the district. On Mr. J. Bade 

 ley's estate, one of the largest in Essex, and whose land 

 adjoins the haunt of the foxes, partridges became extinct ; conse- 

 quently no shooting for himself and friends in September, a serious 

 matter as regards food to the nation and expenditure in entertain- 

 ing. Besides, while there was scarcely a head of game to be found 

 within half a dozen miles of the den, the farmer's stocks decreased 

 enormously. One farmer at Leigh, who holds 300 acres of land, 

 had taken a hundred poultry and ducks in a single morning from 

 his yard, and over the whole of his land partridges, of which a good 

 reserve was left in 1905, had become extinct. The foxes attacked 

 the farmer's stock in the daylight, which had not occurred before ; 

 therefore it was necessary to have a man on guard in the farm- 

 yard all day in order to drive the foxes away. Daylight depreda 

 tions of foxes in the poultry-yard when vixens have families de- 

 pendent upon them are not uncommon even in the case of wild 

 foxes, which incursions might be effectually prevented if those 

 having charge would supply the vixen during the time the cubs 

 are with her with a few rabbits and rooks left conveniently near 

 her earth. 



Tj.me foxes must be classed with tame deer for chasing 

 r irposes, and as repulsive to humane feeling as rabbit coursing ; 

 while the game -preserver and the poultry-farmer are justified 

 in reprisals on tame foxes, or an undue number of these animals in 

 the vicinity of winged game and poultry-rearing fields, the proprie- 

 tors of these taking the necessary precautions against ordinary 

 incursions. 



In the rearing fields a boundary of low netting is of little avail 

 against foxes, nothing less than 6 feet high wire netting sufficing, 

 and this turned out at the top at an obtuse angle, with closely 

 barbed wire stretched about 6 inches above the bent-over netting. 

 This is expensive (zs. 6d. per yard run), therefore recourse in 



