HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 87 



outhouses and was seen later to jump out of a 

 pigstye. 



In both cases the fox was probably accustomed 

 to forage round the farm, and perhaps to lie up in 

 some convenient and unsuspected corner of the stack- 

 yard or barns. These, however, are exceptions, and 

 unless there are quiet coverts to be found, foxes will 

 not cross certain lines of country. 



Fox-haunts are of three kinds. Woodlands, which 

 need no care except judicious planting, if they are kept 

 quiet. Where game is preserved this is of course done, 

 and foxes swarm if treated fairly. Indeed, it may be 

 said that if foxes are not found in preserved game- 

 coverts they have been destroyed. The late Duke of 

 Beaufort relates in his Diary that ' Mr. Garland [Mr. 

 Holford's keeper] has had twenty-one litters of cubs 

 in two years,' and in 1856 the Badminton Hounds 

 killed eleven and a half brace of foxes on Mr. 

 Holford's property. The Stoneleigh coverts are also 

 instances of well-preserved pheasant-coverts abound- 

 ing in foxes. Every place that has or can shelter 

 a fox should be cared for, however small. How 

 often we find foxes in tiny spinnies, small copses, or 

 wooded ravines ! It matters little how small a place 

 it is if it be kept quiet. I knew a covert, a small 

 triangular bit of rough growth in the corner of a 



