98 A HUNTING CATECHISM 



he could defeat the pack, and escape. Most often, 

 however, it is a newly-disturbed fox that thus 

 behaves, and care must be taken not to change 

 foxes on such an occasion. 



Foxes are very good climbers, and can ascend a 

 high wall if there are any interstices between the 

 bricks through the mortar perishing and falling 

 out. They are often, too, astonishing tree- 

 climbers, and can ascend a rough-barked tree, 

 like an elm, to a very great height indeed. 

 About thirty years ago there was always a fox 

 to be seen nearly at the top of a lofty old elm in 

 Newby Park, near Ripon, which used to make 

 the upper branches his daylight abode, above the 

 height at which the stable lads could annoy him 

 by throwing stones. Foxes often pass the day in 

 snug places amongst ivy ; and many will still re- 

 member a day at Hawkhills, in Yorkshire, when 

 three foxes were found in fir-trees at the same 

 time in the same wood. 



Whether badgers really do harm in a fox- 

 hunting country is an often-debated question; 

 but there is little doubt that, if a badger desires 

 the room of a fox rather than his company, it 

 will certainly have its own way, and in some 

 countries badgers are very prevalent. At the 

 annual dinner of the keepers and earth-stoppers 

 of Lord Middleton's hunt held at Malton on the 

 Derby Day of 1902, it was stated to the assembled 

 company that one hundred and fifty badgers had 

 been killed within the limits of the hunt in the 

 two previous years. 



Badgers are sometimes accused of killing fox- 

 cubs, but no satisfactory evidence has ever been 

 published of this ; and the badger is such a 

 quaint survival of our ancient British fauna, 



