340 HUNTING PRELIMINARIES, 



without the vixen, cannot be received by hunting men as 

 an act of conciliation. When a so-called sportsman of 

 this kind comes into possession, usually his first act is to 

 request the local M.F.H. not to draw his woods until they 

 have been shot, in some cases more than once. This means 

 that hounds do no cub-hunting in these coverts, and probably 

 do not get into them until after Christmas. When many of 

 the woods in a country are occupied in a similar manner, 

 it is evident that for half the season a considerable portion 

 of the hunt territory is unavailable. Consequently, an 

 M.F.H. often has the greatest difficulty in arranging his 

 meets, and in more than one instance a fewer number of hunt- 

 ing days per week has been the result. Very often, when 

 the time at last arrives for the drawing of such coverts, 

 few if any foxes of the right sort are to be found ; a fact 

 which has indirectly led to the retirement of several keen 

 and hard-working Masters. 



When coverts are closed to hounds, deluded foxes naturally 

 seek these supposed abodes of safety, and are then promptly 

 killed by the gamekeepers, who thus get a disproportionately 

 large number of victims. Fox-shooting, which is not 

 practised by farmers, inflicts infinitely more injury on fox- 

 hunting than does wire, and the only remedy is for hunting 

 people to rent as many coverts as they can. Luckily, 

 the best part of Leicestershire is comparatively free from 

 pheasants, on account of there being few coverts suitable 

 for them in it ; although these birds abound in the Charn- 

 wood Forest. 



As a rule, landed proprietors having been brought up in 

 close touch with country interests, are more tolerant of the 

 sports of others than the casual tenant. Yet we find even 

 among them rich men who, although they participate in 

 and profess devotion for the chase, take good care that 

 no fox leaves their coverts alive. Some of them keep 



