SPORTSMAN 78 



probably in the presence of some fox-taker, who 

 sHnks away. At all events, the more friends 

 foxes have the better ; and often a civil word will 

 gain one. 



Many men who hunt are equally fond of 

 shooting, and have friends who preserve their 

 game, many of whom are not aware of the advan- 

 tage it is to them to have a pack of fox-hounds 

 in their covers — particularly early in the season — 

 in cub-hunting in September and October, when 

 they do an immense deal of good towards the 

 preservation of pheasants and hares. By working 

 the covers, they open the runs and tracks used by 

 pheasants so wide that a single snare or wire, or 

 even several, will not catch them ; but before the 

 tracks were open, every pheasant that came was 

 sure to be caught, and equally so with the hares. 

 The plan of catching pheasants with a single wire 

 has not been adopted by poachers until within the 

 last ten or twelve years, if so long ; but nothing is 

 so fatal, if set next to the oat-stubbles or fields 

 where they feed. The writer has had ten or twelve 

 hounds caught at a time by the foot, when cub- 

 hunting at four or five o'clock in the morning, 

 before the pheasants came out to feed ; and he has 

 taken several pheasants alive out of these wires, 

 and released them. And there is no plan that can 

 be adopted half so beneficial as to have a pack 



