142 THE DIARY OF A HUNTSMAN 



few men of this sort can prowl about in covers to 

 find them without being seen. And if it does 

 happen that they find them, probably they may be 

 too young to take ; and when they go again, in- 

 tending to take them, the old vixen will have 

 saved them the trouble, for if once a person visits 

 cubs which are bred above ground, the vixen 

 never fails to remove them. Also, when it is not 

 known where they are, the old one has a better 

 chance of escaping the traps, etc., which are so 

 often found set. On one occasion the writer found 

 no less than eight iron traps at one earth where a 

 fox had gone in. 



Independent of the above advantages of having 

 no earths, or of having them stopped in this way 

 for the season, there is not the same chance of 

 having mangy foxes, for one mangy fox may infect 

 half the earths in a country. 



Another advantage of this plan is, that when 

 the earths are opened at the end of February, 

 although stopped till then, the vixen foxes will 

 soon find out that they are open, — indeed they 

 have been known to inhabit an earth which has 

 been stopped within a week after it was opened, 

 although it had been stopped the whole winter 

 before ; but the dog foxes not having the same 

 motive for seeking the earths, do not find it out 

 so soon, and consequently do not go to ground so 



