106 A HUNTING CATECHISM 



It is this keeping them so long in confinement 

 that is such a prevalent cause of mange. 



Q. Can any method of confining cubs be 

 suggested as likely to prevent mange appearing ? 



A. The most likely way to cause it is to keep 

 them in a stable, or other outhouse, where they 

 are ever in an unnatural state. Every effort 

 should be made instead to copy the conditions 

 which would be natural to them if they were 

 wild, and this may be done by enclosing with 

 wire netting as large a portion of ground as can 

 be , managed, and providing them with an 

 artificial earth, with a box for a sleeping room, 

 and fresh water to drink. One of the healthiest 

 lot of cubs the writer ever saw had an enclosure 

 made for them in a park, surrounding a clump of 

 larches, underneath which was a patch of high 

 nettles, and where already a colony of rabbits had 

 made their burrows. The cubs promptly took 

 possession of one or two of the largest burrows, 

 but what became of the original inhabitants was 

 a mystery that no one attempted to solve ! The 

 cubs were as wild as if they belonged naturally 

 to the place, and on the approach of any person 

 they at once dived into their rabbit holes in the 

 most approved manner. When they were big 

 enough a small portion of wire was raised up, 

 and the larch-clump being close to a covert the 

 cubs used to go there to forage, and return again 

 to their enclosure during the day-time. After a 

 while the wire netting was removed altogether, 

 and the cubs were left to their own devices. The 

 wire netting should be about six feet high, for if 

 there is a vixen with cubs about she will kill the 

 others if she can get at them. 



