KEEPERS AND KEEPERING 405 



the hen-roost does not take the undersized piner, but the fattest 

 bird he can find. 



It must, however, be admitted that the keeper who thinks Vermin 

 his only concern is to kill all vermin indiscriminately goes equally beneficial 

 far towards the opposite extreme. Birds and beasts of prey are 

 not wholly good or wholly bad ; in the destruction of mice, rats, 

 and voles they often play a useful part, and the extermination 

 of the greater vermin entails the duty of keeping in check the 

 lesser pests, which tend to become too numerous owing to the 

 destruction of their natural enemies. 



With these facts in view we may proceed to examine the 

 credit and debit account of the various animals that decorate 

 the keepers' " dule " tree to see which should be sacrificed in 

 the interests of sport and which should be spared. 



VERMIN. 



The leading offender amongst four-footed vermin is un- FOX. 

 doubtedly the fox difficult of approach, suspicious of the lure, 

 a ranger of miles of country, one day picking a Grouse from the 

 nest, the next day visiting the farmer's poultry yard, taking his 

 meals sometimes off rabbits, poultry, and Grouse, sometimes off 

 rats, voles, or even frogs, his diet must always be described as 

 promiscuous, his morals noteworthy only by their absence. 

 Even in his methods of destruction the fox is guided by no 

 known law ; he will snap off the heads of a dozen fowls without 

 carrying off a bird ; at other times he will carefully bury his 

 victims, and as often as not fail to return to their fragrant 

 and probably well-" trapped " remains. Stories aYe told of 

 the relics of a dozen Grouse killed in the nesting season, and 

 found in varying stages of decomposition in or near a fox's 

 " earth." * 



It is easy to see that every effort should be made to rid the 



1 In a single day's walk the Committee's field observer found three nests in which 

 the hen Grouse had been snapped up by a fox, leaving the eggs scattered and broken, 

 and a line of hen bird's feathers to tell the mournful tale. 



