HOW SPORT IS SPOILED. 101 



keeper can do is immense. He can slay the vixen, and 

 leave the cubs to starve. He can destroy the cubs them- 

 selves, leaving the parents, or sweep away the whole 

 family at once. Or he may allow the litter to be once 

 found in cub-hunting time, and then dispose of them, 

 with the ready excuse when the covert is blank that the 

 cubs were there, but have shifted their quarters after 

 being disturbed by the hounds. If the owner of a covert 

 does not care about having foxes, the keeper is hardly 

 likely to. No man can serve two masters, and in such a 

 case the M.F.H. and his own master have both to be 

 pleased, and it does not require a conjuror to predict 

 whose tastes will take precedence. In fact, in talking 

 about foxes to a keeper whose master is really very fond 

 of covert shooting, I attach exactly the same amount of 

 credence to his statements that I should to those of a 

 young lady who chooses to tell her present admirer of her 

 past " experiences " with the one trifling difference, that 

 I should acquit the damsel of intentional misstatement ; 

 not so the guardian of the preserves. Some coverts are 

 so popular with foxes that to them they will resort, what- 

 ever treatment they may meet with ; and the number of 

 foxes that may be killed in such places by an evil-minded 

 man would seem almost incredible to the uninitiated in such 

 matters. And these men are seldom caught out, as the 

 coverts are only blank when they are drawn unexpectedly. 

 Fair warning being given, a fox will be forthcoming, and 

 a wild fox too this being only a question of time to 

 allow him to take up his quarters. To turn down a bag- 

 man is perhaps the greatest insult that can be offered to 

 a foxhunting establishment, and it is a trick, generally, 

 speaking, easy of detection, because the victim, after 

 running in a suspicious manner, is almost sure to be 



