Ground Vermin Trapping Foxes. 383 



able trouble must be taken and a really systematic plan 

 adopted. First of all, say, six traps should be tilled to 

 catch rabbits, that is, with a real view to this end, while, 

 say, three or four more should be set in places as if for 

 rabbits, not with any idea of catching them, but rather with 

 the aim of entrapping any fox which may be pursuing his 

 destructive vocation in search of unfortunately circumstanced 

 bunnies. Besides this, one, two, or three dead rabbits, 

 according to time and means, must be placed in gins as if 

 caught, and a regular cordon of traps set round each in a 

 zig-zag circle, each spring pointing towards a common 

 centre. Such an arrangement of gins requires some dexterity 

 in the setting, and care must be observed, otherwise a finger 

 may get injured. The gin holding the dead and apparently 

 late caught rabbit should lie in the centre of the circle of 

 traps and the rabbit be made to lie partly upturned, and in 

 as natural a manner as possible. This wholesale manner 

 of going to work to trap a fox should, if properly carried 

 out, effect its purpose, where the usual and less extensive 

 mode of procedure fails. 



Very often, in localities where foxes are more than usually 

 plentiful and but little or ineffectually hunted, the young 

 are to be caught at the cubbing earth or at a holt adopted 

 subsequently, owing to the first having been discovered. 

 No animals, we believe, whether vermin or other, clear out 

 more quickly from their places of litter, on discovery of 

 their situation, than the fox ; and consequently, when once 

 you have detected, through the means of a terrier able to 

 surely wind and fight the varmint, or perhaps by personal 

 observation, the existence of cubs getting well on towards 



