HUNTING 133 



to the many foxes who give sport and are 

 none the worse, pitting their clever wits 

 against man and hound, let us comfort our- 

 selves that for one who pays toll of terror and 

 death at least twenty go free. 



This also can be remembered in hunting 

 ethics, as a further salve to our consciences, 

 that the fox gets no worse than he gives ; 

 in his hunting forays he deals more terror and 

 painful life-taking than he in his turn meets 

 with ; also he does not only kill to eat, but 

 often for the love of it, as witness the many 

 dead bodies in a poultry yard after one of 

 Master Reynard's night visits. Therefore 

 next day if he is hunted and harried even 

 to the death, it is only carrying out that law 

 of nature which, though it be not the highest 

 ideal of moral philosophy, is one that rules the 

 kingdom where man has not yet cast off the 

 whole of his animal skin. 



To kill an animal by instantaneous means is 

 no cruelty. The beast or bird that dies in an 

 instant by gun or rifle does so with no pain 

 compared to what it would endure in the 



