156 THE FOX 



influence is naturally cast on the side of the gun. 

 At the best the shooting man who wishes for a big 

 bag can hardly regard the hounds as anything but 

 a nuisance. It is not so much the toll taken of 

 pheasants that is objected to as the disturbance of 

 the coverts. It is only fair to remember that the 

 planning of a beat so as to give the sporting shots 

 which the true sportsman delights in, is a matter of 

 elaborate strategy, and a fox or foxes in the covert 

 will often cause the defeat of the best-laid scheme for 

 bringing the birds over the guns. The old school 

 of keepers had a sort of traditional hostility to foxes 

 handed down from the days when the fox was vermin, 

 but the modern keeper has developed a quite natural 

 antipathy to an animal which injures his credit and his 

 pocket, and at the best causes a great deal of work 

 if its misdeeds are to be counteracted. Even the 

 keeper's master is not enthusiastic about foxes. He 

 does not hunt, and it is a curious fact that those who 

 are devoted to particular games and sports regard 

 with disapproval other sports and games which they 

 do not care for. The shooting and hunting men 

 have something of the same feeling, each for the 

 other, that the orthodox in religion and politics have 

 for dissenters or opponents : they wonder at their 

 mental position, and have a quiet disapproval of their 



