THE FOX 77 



in paraffin should be poked into the hole with 

 a stick, and she will then soon take the hint to 

 move them elsewhere. Small farmers who have 

 rabbit-warrens to keep down the butcher's bills 

 are not always pleased to have a litter of cubs 

 quartered on them in the spring of the year 

 when the rabbits are breeding, and the huntsman 

 must see that the vixen shifts her nursery to a 

 more friendly neighbourhood. The huntsman 

 or master must make it his business to keep in 

 touch with the earth-stoppers during the summer, 

 and he should know the exact whereabouts of 

 each litter. When one district is rather short 

 of foxes and another in the same hunt is over- 

 stocked, it is advisable to remove a vixen with 

 her cubs to some covert where there is no litter. 

 The mother and little ones should be dug out 

 and taken direct to the covert where they are 

 wanted, then they should be put in an artificial 

 earth and the vixen stopped in for a week. Of 

 course they must be fed every evening, and as 

 the vixen is in a strange country where she 

 would not know her way about, it is as well to 

 provide food all through the summer. Moving 

 cubs is a very delicate operation, and the hunts- 



