FOXES 107 



Q. What food would such cubs be able to 

 catch for themselves ? 



A. Chiefly field mice, very small rabbits or 

 rats, young thrushes and blackbirds, and 

 quantities of beetles. It would be a consider- 

 able time before they could interfere with 

 winged game, especially wild partridges and 

 pheasants, which would nearly always have a 

 parent bird at hand to warn the young ones. By 

 the time the cubs became old enough to be 

 dangerous foes, the young birds should be pretty 

 well able to take care of themselves. 



Q. Would cubs thus brought up be able to 

 show any sport in the following season ? 



A. No, very little, for they have had no old 

 vixen to take them about, and teach them the 

 country. Good sport entirely depends on there 

 being a large supply of old foxes ; and it is a 

 mere mockery for an estate owner to make a 

 pretence of providing foxes, and then to show 

 nothing but cubs. Merely to have a fox found 

 is but a small part of the proceeding, the real 

 test being whether a good run has followed. 



