FOXES FOXHOUNDS & FOX-HUNTING 



decent run, and will probably try to get to ground 

 in some safe retreat if hounds don't overhaul her 

 in the open. I well remember a May hunt, in 

 which it took three men all they knew to prevent 

 a vixen getting to ground in a disused quarry. 

 She ran the rock ledges like a cat, and almost beat 

 both hounds and men, though the former event- 

 ually rolled her over. Half an hour later the dog 

 fox bolted from an earth in the quarry, and he 

 stood up for a fast sixty minutes before hounds 

 pulled him down in the open. After hounds 

 left the dale there was no more lamb worrying, 

 so there was little doubt that the two foxes killed 

 were the culprits. 



It is often said that a dog fox will try to lead 

 hounds away from the vixen when the latter is 

 lying up, whereas on occasion he will do exactly 

 the opposite. Towards the end of March, 1921, 

 we had a very fast hunt with a dog fox, which 

 eventually got to ground just in front of the 

 leading hound, and later it was discovered that 

 the vixen was in the same earth. When a fox 

 kills a lamb the carcass of the latter is often found 

 minus head and tail. This does not invariably 

 happen, however, as it is not uncommon to see 

 whole carcasses of lambs lying in or about a breed- 

 ing earth. 



While a fox has no hesitation about eating 

 carrion above ground, or digging down to the 

 body of a dead sheep which has been buried, it 

 prefers I think to do its own killing. In the case 

 of lambs it may take one which has just died and 

 is still warm, but though on the hills one sees lots 

 of carcasses laid on the tops of walls, or hung 

 in low thorn trees, etc., by the shepherds, I never 

 remember any such carcasses having been re- 

 moved by foxes. 



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