SHOOTING MEN. 339 



Great destruction is caused by hunting being carried on 

 so late in the season and the death-rate among lambs is 

 always high in consequence ; the great Beckford was 

 entirely opposed to this practice, and says : " no good 

 country should be hunted after February ; nor should there 

 be any hunting at all after March," and yet some hunts 

 boast of killing May foxes ! Also the turning down of 

 bag foxes during the lambing season is another fruitful 

 source of annoyance to farmers. 



HUNTING MEN AND SHOOTING MEN. 

 The great enemies of hunting are preservers of pheasants 

 who desire to make " newspaper bags " ; for to accomplish 

 this Cockney ambition, foxes have to be killed. The toll 

 taken by foxes is not sufficiently large to spoil a game 

 preserver's amusement, and should be cheerfully borne by 

 shooting men who understand that the principle of "give 

 and take " should govern every branch of sport. The chief 

 offenders in this respect are shooting tenants, who as; a rule 

 take no interest in country affairs, and are entirely in the 

 hands of their servants. In the vast majority of cases their 

 gamekeepers shoot every fox which comes within range, 

 and never let off an old one. When, for shame sake, they 

 spare a litter after killing the vixen, their mercy is of little 

 use ; for the cubs, having no one to show them about the 

 country, degenerate into the short running kind, which give 

 no sport. The cubs that are brought up on flesh of various 

 sorts, suffer more or less from indigestion, on account 

 of being deprived of the fur or feathers, which are as 

 necessary a constituent of their food as is hay or straw in 

 that of horses largely fed on corn. From dyspepsia, their 

 coats get a mangy appearance ; although of course parasitic 

 mange can be set up only by contagion. Shooting men and 

 gamekeepers should understand that the rearing of cubs 



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