HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 99 



advised two drains with entrances fourteen feet apart. 

 Lay a drain with eight-inch pipes and deepening to 

 the kennel, which should be about three feet in the 

 ground, three feet in diameter and eighteen inches 

 high. Choose a dry spot in an open part of a wood, 

 and if possible near water, so that the cubs can get to 

 it to drink. Procure a litter of cubs. One of the 

 vixens will very likely breed in the earth when grown 

 up to maturity. The tenants should not be stopped 

 out on hunting days during the first season. The 

 objection to this form is that the kennel is lower than 

 the entrance, and such an earth is difficult, if not im- 

 possible, to keep dry. 



IV. Mr. T. Smith recommended two chambers, 

 one further in than the other, and two entrances. 

 This earth is in the form of an acute-angled triangle, 

 the apex being the further point of the earth from the 

 entrance. A base is formed by an imaginary line 

 outside the earth and the entrances are at the two 

 extreme points of the base, both sides' covered with 

 two-inch slabs, width nine inches, height eight inches. 

 The diameter of the two kennels three feet. This 

 does not seem to me so good as No. I. 



Again, another very favourite artificial refuge for 

 foxes is the stick-heap. The best place for making 

 a stick-heap is that of which an account is given in 



H 2 



