The Fanners — Fox Preservers, &c. 209 



" Do you keep greyhounds ? '^ I asked. 



" No, I do not/' was the reply. 



" When you Hved in the Grafton country you 

 used to do so," I rejoined, ''and many others 

 also, and I always credited the greyhounds with 

 killing one fox to five killed b)/ the pack ; and I do 

 not think I exaggerated." 



"Well," he said, reflecting, "now that you 

 name it I think there is a good deal in what 

 you say, for I once had a dog which did catch 

 them, and when he caught one he carried him 

 about and would not let me have him." 



Formerly there were greyhounds, or lurchers, 

 kept in every village in the Grafton Hunt, and 

 the stubble was put into heaps in the field and 

 formed a favourite bed for Reynard. At the 

 present time I only know of one brace of grey- 

 hounds in the Hunt, and they are in my native 

 village ; and, happening to be there on a visit at 

 Christmas, the hounds sent a fox down to the 

 outskirts of the village, and one of the greyhounds 

 killed him a very short distance from me. 



In Lord Southampton's time foxes were found 



to be very thin in the spring, and blank days 



threatened. Meeting on one occasion at 



Whistley — the Hunt's largest covert on the 



south side — we drew it blank ; Halse Coppice, 



p 



