THE DIGGING OF FOXES 261 



you try an earth i 1 for want of this precaution, I dug 

 three hours to a terrier, that lay all the time at a rabbit. 

 There was another circumstance, which I am not likely 

 to forget — "that I had twenty miles to ride home after- 

 wards" A fox sometimes runs over an earth, and 

 does not go into it : he sometimes goes in, and does 

 not stay : he may find it too hot, or may not like the 

 company that he meets with there. I make no doubt 

 that he has good reasons for everything he does, 

 though we are not always acquainted with them. 



Huntsmen, when they get near the fox, will some- 

 times put a hound in to draw him. This is, however, 

 a cruel operation, and seldom answers any other pur- 

 pose than to occasion the dog a bad bite, the fox's 

 head generally being towards him ; besides, a few 

 minutes' digging will render it unnecessary. If you 

 let the fox first seize your whip, the hound will draw 

 him more readily. 2 



You should not encourage badgers in your woods : 

 they make strong earths, which will be expensive and 

 troublesome to you, if you stop them ; or fatal to your 

 sport, if you do not. You, without doubt, remember 

 an old Oxford toast : 



Hounds stout, and horses healthy, 

 Earths well stopp'd, and foxes plenty. 



All, certainly, very desirable to a fox-hunter ; yet, I 

 apprehend the earths stopped to be the most necessary ; 



p A fox will often go through a drain and out the other end, so that a 

 huntsman should always make a cast forward to make certain.] 



2 You may draw a fox, by fixing a piece of whip-cord, made into a 

 noose, at the end of a stick ; which, when the fox seizes, you may draw 

 him out by. 



