BIOGRAPHIES IN A NUTSHELL 143 



country, though I should hardly call the Craven a 

 bad scenting country. In any case the book is 

 still regarded as an authority, more especially in 

 regard to foxes. Mr. Smith did not believe that 

 foxes cared about feather. His own words are : 

 "That they do prefer rabbits is easily proved to be 

 the case by confining in some place a fox and with 

 him a rabbit, and every other sort of food live or 

 dead that can be thought of, and he will take the 

 rabbit first for a certainty. This is not a great 

 reason, but the great reason why keepers dislike 

 foxes, for every fox destroys rabbits in one year 

 sufficient to supply the keeper with gin; consequently 

 when he sees a fox he loses his spirits as well as 

 his temper." The moral, of course, is that gentlemen 

 who wish well to hunting should not allow their 

 keepers to sell the rabbits. Mr. Smith declares that 

 he never saw three places where a pheasant had been 

 destroyed by a fox during the whole time he hunted 

 hounds, although constantly looking whenever he 

 went in coverts, abounding in pheasants and foxes 

 at the same time. 



"As well as shape, full well he knows, 

 To kill their fox they must have nose." 



Mr. Smith was a great advocate for spaying 

 young light and weedy bitches. He declared that 

 it improved the nose, and that the spayed bitches 

 often became the best cold hunters in the pack, 

 although very indifferent before, and far better than 



