ix. PHEASANT REARING (PART VIII} 145 



is enjoyed almost entirely at the expense of the game 

 preserver. If foxes had not a quiet retreat, and did 

 not find ground and winged game at their disposal as 

 well, they would soon rob the farmyards of poultry 

 and the fields of lambs, and the hunt would have to 

 pay the bill. Besides which, on unpreserved land, 

 foxes are usually exterminated as mischievous vermin 

 by the farmers, unless the latter chance to school and 

 deal in hunters. 



Foxes will not take to woods they do not fancy, 

 and Hothhifi will make them; but their absence is 

 no proof whatever, as generally placed to their 

 charge, that the owners of such coverts do not 

 preserve for sport with the hounds. I never knew a 

 game preserver, who was a sportsman at heart, 

 encourage the destruction of foxes in a hunting 

 country ; and I consider a pack in full cry bursting 

 out of covert is as grand a sight as the finest show 

 of pheasants or wild ducks ever seen ; yet I am 

 certain keepers pricateh/ kill foxes from sheer disgust 

 at the damage these animals inflict on their master's 

 property and sport. I also believe these very men 

 would hold their hands if they were treated by the 

 officials of the hunt a little more courteously than 

 they sometimes are. 



But perhaps the cruel trick a fox has, of killing 

 the hen pheasants when on their eggs in the spring, 

 is what embitters a keeper more than anything else 

 especially as the pheasants are often tossed in wanton 



II L 



