70 RECORDS OF THE CHASE 



fraternity would never accomplish the capture of a 

 half-grown or an old stub-bred fox. It is only when 

 they go to ground that the devices of those marauders 

 can, with facility, be put into effect. 



An event occurred a few years since, when I was 

 residing in Hampshire, the details of which are worth 

 mentioning, because they go very far to show the 

 advantages which would arise from the adoption of my 

 recommendation. A vixen fox had laid up her cubs in 

 an earth on the banks of a chalk-pit, and one day in the 

 spring, seeing a very notorious fox-stealer lurking 

 about, I immediately communicated with the keeper, 

 who caused the vixen to remove her cubs by burning 

 some tar and brimstone-matches at the mouth of the 

 earth; she took them to a neighbouring covert and 

 brought them up on a stub, and they afforded some 

 good runs when they were sufficiently old enough. To 

 have dug them out would have been impossible from 

 the nature of the earth; but the vulpicide in question 

 practised a far more cunning and systematic device. 

 He had a small female terrier which he had taught to 

 go into the earths and bring out the cubs one at a tune 

 in her mouth, and she would perform it with the 

 utmost tenderness ; a plan by far more dexterous and 

 destructive than that of digging, from two causes. In 

 the first place, if a fox-stealer resorts to digging it 

 necessarily occupies some time, during which he may 

 be detected ; and although the laws are not very severe 

 on such occasions, he may be punished for trespass, a 

 penalty which he will not willingly incur. In the next 

 place, he cannot do it without disturbing the soil, 

 which leaves indubitable evidence that some depredation 

 has been committed. But with the terrier trained to 

 the performance a whole country may be robbed and 

 no discovery made till cub-hunting commences. The 

 operation is performed in a few minutes. 



Regarding the fact of having caused the vixen to 

 remove her cubs as equivalent to breaking up or 

 stopping the earth, I will now proceed to illustrate two 



