142 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



siderable wind that will keep foxes from them. A gentleman who never 

 hunts, being on a visit to a friend of his in the country, who hunts a great 

 deal, heard him talk frequently of bag-foxes : as he was unwilling to betray 

 his ignorance, his discretion and curiosity kept him for some time in sus- 

 pense, till at last he could not refrain from asking, What kind of an animal 

 a bag-fox was ? and, If it was not a species of fox peculiar to that country ? 



A pack of hounds having run a fox to a ground immediately after 

 they had found him, he was digged and turned out again ; and, that the 

 operation of turning him out might be better performed, the master of 

 the hounds undertook it himself. You will hardly believe me when I 

 tell you, that he forgot the place where he turned him out, and they never 

 once could hit upon the scent. 



If you breed up cubs, you will find a fox-court necessary : they should 

 be kept there till they are large enough to take care of themselves. It ought 

 to be open at the top, and walled in. I need not tell you, that it must 

 be every way well secured, and particularly the floor of it, which must 

 be either bricked or paved. A few boards fitted to the corners will also 

 be of use, to shelter and to hide them. Foxes ought to be kept very clean, 

 and have plenty of fresh water : birds and rabbits are their best food : 

 horse-flesh might give them the mange ; for they are subject to this dis- 

 order. I remember a remarkable instance of it : Going out to course 

 I met the whipper-in returning from exercising his horses, and asked him, 

 If he had found any hares ? No, Sir, he replied ; but I have caught a 

 fox : I saw him sunning himself under a hedge, and, finding he could not 

 run, I drove him up into a corner, got off my horse, and took him up ; 

 but he is since dead. I found him at the place he directed me to, and 

 he was indeed a curiosity : he had not a single hair on his brush, and very 

 few on his body. 



I have kept foxes too long ; I also have turned them out too young. 

 The safest way, I believe, will be to avoid either extreme. When cubs 

 are bred in an earth near you, if you add two or three to the number, it 

 is not improbable that the old fox will take care of them. Of this you 

 may be certain, that if they live they will be good foxes ; for the others 

 will show them the country. Those which you turn into an earth, should 

 be regularly fed : if they should be once neglected, it is probable they 

 will forsake the place, wander away, and die through want of food. When 

 the cubs leave the earth (which they may soon do), your game-keeper 

 should throw food for them, in parts of the cover where it may be most 

 easy for them to find it ; and, when he knows their haunt, he should con- 

 tinue to feed them there. Nothing destroys so much the breed of foxes 

 as buying them to turn out, unless care be taken of them afterwards. 



Your country being extensive, probably it may. not be all equally 

 good : it may be worth your while, therefore, to remove some of the cubs 



