256 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



he was indeed a curiosity : he had not a single hair on 

 his brush, and very few on his body. 1 



I have kept foxes too long ; I also have turned 

 them out too young. The safest way, I believe, will 

 be to avoid either extreme. When cubs are bred in 

 an earth near you, if you add two or three to the 

 number, it is not improbable that the old fox will take 

 care of them. Of this you may be certain, that if 

 they live they will be good foxes ; for the others will 

 show them the country. Those which you turn into 

 an earth, should be regularly fed : if they should be 

 once neglected, it is probable they will forsake the 

 place, wander away, and die through want of food. 

 When the cubs leave the earth (which they may soon 

 do), your game-keeper should throw food for them, in 

 parts of the cover where it may be most easy for them 

 to find it ; and, when he knows their haunt, he should 

 continue to feed them there. Nothing destroys so 

 much the breed of foxes as buying them 2 to turn out, 

 unless care be taken of them afterwards. 



[* There is much yet to be learnt about mange in foxes, and until 

 it has been more thoroughly investigated, it would be better not to 

 advance here any opinions on the subject. The disease in some forms is 

 identical with that which attacks dogs, but there are varieties which we 

 believe no dog has ever been known to have. There are many instances 

 of mangy foxes giving the disease to terriers. In one form of fox-mange 

 the blood turns black, and a few drops of it applied externally to any 

 animal is said to infect the skin with the disease. Foxes in confinement 

 nearly always get the mange, and it is therefore likely in those cases that 

 the cause is the want of some particular food which they get in a wild 

 state. By inspecting the wild fox's billet it will be seen that blackbeetles 

 form a large portion of his food. Whether that insect possesses medicinal 

 properties for keeping the blood in order we do not know, but in that 

 case it would explain much.] 



[ 2 Foxes should be bought only from a country where there is no 

 hunting.] 



