24 FOXHUNTING ON LAKELAND FELLS 



By degrees, owing to the importation of foxes 

 for restocking certain districts adjoining the fells, 

 the true hill fox became infused with this new 

 blood. The new-comers were a smaller and 

 redder variety, and although to-day hounds often 

 account for foxes with greyish jackets, the supply 

 as a whole differs little in appearance from the 

 foxes which are brought to hand in the shires. 

 It may be safely said that the real old " greyhound " 

 variety is a thing of the past, only to be seen to-day 

 staring woodenly from a glass case in the fell-side 

 farmhouses. 



Long and lean, the fell fox proper was a much 

 heavier animal than his relations who have 

 usurped his place. Eighteenpounds was a common 

 weight, and instances of twenty and twenty-one 

 pounds have been recorded, but to-day there are 

 more foxes under than over sixteen pounds. Now 

 and then the fell packs kill an extra heavy fox, and 

 I can vouch for the weights of at least three foxes 

 which pulled down the scales to the eighteen-pound 

 mark. 



Curiously enough two of these foxes were killed 

 by the Coniston Hounds on the same day. The 

 date was March 16th, 1913, and the first fox was 

 killed at High Dale Park, near Coniston, after a 

 good hunt of two and a haK hours. Fox number 

 two was run into on the shore of Coniston Lake, 

 after a fast hunt, by way of High Bethicar, 



