FOXES FOXHOUNDS & FOX-HUNTING 



small relish for these midnight expeditions, so to 

 salve their consciences they do the job at say five 

 or six on the morning of the meet. This is of 

 course far worse than leaving it undone, for the 

 foxes are stopped in, and they run the risk of 

 being suffocated. Again, the earths may be 

 stopped at the right time, but unless the material 

 used is of the right kind a fox may scratch his 

 way in. The best material consists of a bundle 

 of faggots, known in some districts as " bavins." 



Directly the day's sport is over, the earths 

 should be opened again. I am afraid some 

 keepers do not stick very religiously to this part 

 of the contract, the result being that foxes are 

 either suffocated or driven away elsewhere, so 

 that coverts which are known to contain earths 

 do not invariably produce foxes when hounds 

 visit them. Unless the earths are promptly re- 

 opened, it gives fox-stealers an opportunity to 

 set traps, and an unscrupulous keeper may be 

 tempted to do the same thing. 



In softish ground, a fox will scratch his way out 

 of an earth in time, if his abode has been stopped. 

 If the ground is rocky, or frozen hard, it is pos- 

 sible to keep a fox in without stopping the en- 

 trance of the earth. I know of at least two foxes 

 in America, which were kept underground by 

 setting a trap at one entrance, and at two other 

 entrances a piece of paper stuck in a cleft peg, 

 placed about two feet from the mouth of each 

 hole. The foxes uncovered the trap, but were not 

 caught, and the trap being reset, they refused to 

 pass it, or the two pieces of paper. 



Where badgers are more or less plentiful, they 

 are occasionally responsible for undoing the earth- 

 stoppers' work. In some large earths, badgers and 

 foxes live together, and both are stopped out, if the 



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