CHAPTER XI 



THE HUNTED FOX AND HIS WILES 



I DO not think I ever remember to have seen so few 

 coverts drawn blank as in the present season. The 

 litters did well, it is true, and there w^ere plenty of 

 them ; it was a good breeding year though I heard 

 of no very large litters anywhere. Yet, though 

 most countries are well stocked with foxes they 

 have had just as many before now, only, I think, 

 they have never been so easy to find. 



It is the extraordinarily wet season that has 

 brought this about, I have little doubt, for a fox 

 would find it a very difficult matter to make him- 

 self really comfortable lying out in such a winter 

 as this. Those who reside in the country cannot 

 fail to have noticed how, w^ithout any severe frost, 

 all the undergrowth in the coverts, save the very 

 stems of the briars, has disappeared. The tangle of 

 weeds and coarse grasses which made our fences 

 so blind has gone long ago, and gone without very 

 much aid from King Frost. Fairly battered down 

 flat by the ceaseless downpour, it has simply rotted 

 aw^ay. 



