758 MAJ^UAL OF MODERN FARRIERY. 



young foxes, as it only encourages the theft of them, and 

 cannot fail to prove injurious to hunting in general. It is a 

 wise plan to pay gamekeepers for protecting earths, during 

 the breeding season. Furze covers are decidedly the best, 

 and more safe as breeding places. 



To those who breed cubs for the supply of their covers, 

 a court, open at the top and securely walled in, will be 

 necessary, which must be either paved or laid with brick, 

 and provided with wooden corners for the animals hiding 

 themselves. But what is still better, a pit of about twelve 

 feet long by six wide, and three feet deep, should be built 

 all round, and then filled up with earth, so that the foxes may 

 Durrow in it. By this means, the animals will be living there 

 in a state of nature, which will render them more hardy when 

 turned out, when they will have no other shelter than a bur- 

 row. They should always be turned out in the morning, and 

 food put down at the entrance of the burrow where they are 

 wished to remain. They must be regularly fed for some 

 time afterwards, with rabbits, sheep's paunches, and birds, 

 and if a sheep happens to die, it may be laid down near 

 their earth, which will serve them for some time. Attention 

 to these points are the most likely means of preventing them 

 from wandering, and taking up their abode at a distance. 



It is injudicious to hunt after February, as the females are 

 then pregnant, and are easily run down. Besides, to kill 

 one while with young is the loss of the entire litter. Mr. 

 Daniel observes : — " The foxes' heads so pompously exposed 

 against every kennel door, that the huntsman may say he 

 had killed so many brace, (of which foxes many are 

 digged out and killed, when blood is not wanted, for no 

 better reason, and which another day, perhaps, might have 

 run hours, and died gallantly at last ; this is a slavish 

 slaughter, prejudicial to sport in fox-hunting,) does not ascer- 



