EARTH-STOPPING 143 



readily as a vixen. Therefore if at this time, in 

 March, there are earths open, it will probably be 

 a dog fox which the hounds are running ; and one 

 of the greatest advantages of having earths at all, 

 if not the only one, is that it enables hounds to 

 hunt later in the season, as the vixens will generally 

 go to ground. But this does not make up for the 

 disadvantages ; and it would be much better to 

 lose a few days' hunting. 



Having adopted this plan with the greatest 

 success and satisfaction to all parties, although the 

 intelligence at first to some gentlemen, when it 

 was proposed by the writer, created much alarm, 

 on his hunting a new country, with the dread that 

 it would be the means of driving all the foxes 

 out of the country, etc., which the fact of not 

 having a single blank day for a year or two erased 

 from their minds, it was no trifling addition to 

 this satisfaction, and to the proof that earths 

 are not absolutely necessary to have foxes in a 

 country, for the writer lately to have had the 

 opportunity of ascertaining that there are no 

 earths in the whole Bedfordshire country, and 

 yet foxes in abundance. It is very true, our 

 forefathers did not stop the earths in this way ; 

 but in former times foxes were not bought and 

 sold as they are now. 



The only persons who really lose by this, are 



