THE FOX AS OUTLAW 145 



were a favourite form of sport, and that in parts of 

 Germany the fox was esteemed for the sporting shots 

 he afforded. On some estates the host would like to 

 see a few foxes in the bag, and no doubt they were, 

 if not protected, yet spared. But in Denmark and 

 elsewhere the pheasant is becoming more common, 

 and the fox has no deadlier enemy than the pheasant, 

 unless it be the hare in Germany. Hare-drives on a 

 large scale are a favourite sport on some German 

 shootings, and to preserve the hares it is necessary to 

 keep down the foxes. Some German sportsman with 

 the national love of accurate statement has calculated 

 that each fox destroys seventy hares a year. I do not 

 know how this calculation was arrived at, but it has 

 had the effect of causing the fox to be proscribed 

 where its presence was, if not discouraged, yet winked 

 at by the owners and keepers. I have sometimes 

 been inclined to doubt if foxes could catch many 

 hares. The hare, if we may judge by her ruses when 

 hunted, is not much less cunning than the fox, and 

 certainly swifter. But the fox has a gift of apparently 

 planning-out his stratagems, and I have come to the 

 conclusion that he is a very successful hare-hunter, 

 and that the German sportsman may not be so far 

 out after all in his calculations. The fox hunts round 

 the field in which the hares are, and finds out their 



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