THE FOX 113 



they live a great deal on fish which they find on 

 the shore. It is not here pretended to assert that 

 foxes will never do any mischief, but that, just 

 as when once a dog takes to killing sheep, he 

 continues to do so ; so with a fox, if one learns to 

 take poultry he continues to do so till taken him- 

 self. But there are hundreds of old foxes which 

 never tasted a fowl ; nor do they commit a twentieth 

 part of the mischief to game that is sometimes 

 talked of by keepers, who tell their masters that 

 it is no use to preserve pheasants whilst there are 

 foxes. Surely some signs would be left in covers, 

 if foxes did destroy so many pheasants, — they 

 would not eat up feathers and all ; and the writer 

 can, with a safe conscience, declare that he never 

 saw three places where a pheasant had been 

 destroyed by a fox during the whole time he hunted 

 hounds, although constantly looking whenever he 

 went in covers abounding with pheasants and foxes 

 at the same time. 



The following is a system which has been known 

 to be adopted by keepers who are determined 

 enemies to foxes, and who wish their masters to 

 believe, not only that they are very attentive to 

 their duty, but that foxes do much more harm 

 than they really do, as they say (it being the 

 time they have cubs). The keeper adopts this 

 plan : he shoots a hen pheasant, and having cut 



