94 SPORTING PARSONS OF THE OLD SCHOOL : 



good food in the shape of rabbits, rats, mice, game and 

 poultry upon which to exercise his natural bent. Amongst 

 Other manifold advantages, he is free from the evils ot a 

 congested population, for the fox and his cubs, more for- 

 tunate than man, have ample sleeping accommodation and 

 plenty of room to gambol about with complete freedom 

 from their natural enemies throughout their long vacation. 

 Consider also the pleasure he derives from his nightly 

 marauding expeditions to stock and replenish his larder ! 

 Now take the other half of the year, when we will admit 

 he " lives dangerously." We will presume that having 

 survived the cubbing season, his good food and prelim- 

 inary exercise have made him very fit for the effort which 

 he will be called upon one day to make ; and when that 

 eventful day arrives, small wonder that he feels disdainfully 

 confident in his wonderful fleetness of foot and marvellous 

 cunning, by which he often outruns and out-manoeuvres 

 his pursuers. Note that his chances are not as they would 

 appear, 40 to i against him ; but that his chance of escape 

 is so great that some 20 couples of hounds repeatedly 

 prove no match for him. 



We will not, however, try to beg the question in this 

 way, but suppose the fox could speak for himself and his 

 kind. Would it not follow that, like the Prince of Denmark, 

 he would " sooner bear the ills he knows " ? &c. Is it not 

 reasonable to suppose that he would infinitely prefer to 

 take his chance, and a good sporting chance too, in an 

 occasional run for his life, than to be wiped off the face of 

 the earth ? For such — by gunshot, trap or poison — would 

 be his ultimate fate, were fox-hunting to cease. 



The fox, being one of the few remaining wild animals 

 extant in the British Isles, should, in reality, not only 

 be accounted a very valuable national asset, to be pre- 

 served at all cost, but paeans should be sung in his 

 praise ! For to him we are primarily indebted for our 

 dashing cavalry officers and other fine specimens of man- 

 hood, who, in his wake at the earliest age, become 



