2 THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



ago there is no need to refer, because no mention was 

 made of the fox, and for the matter of that Twici's 

 work, and all those which followed during the next 

 three or four hundred years, treated of stag and hare, 

 of hawking and fishing, and of other diversions, but 

 were unanimously silent as regards what was so shortly 

 to become the foremost beast of venery. 



And as a matter of extreme probability, if not of 

 actual fact, the reasons for the tardy appearance of the 

 fox in hunting history are very simple ones. During 

 what are known as the Middle Ages, and down to a 

 much later period, the country was only half culti- 

 vated, and was in many districts covered with forests, 

 several of which extended over thousands of acres. 

 These were preserved for the chase of the stag or buck, 

 and in like manner the open country was utilised for 

 hawking, coursing, and, to a very limited extent, for 

 hunting the hare by scent. Foxes were then classed 

 with martens, wild cats, badgers, polecats, and others, 

 and were not regarded with any great affection by the 

 sportsmen of the day. But during the later Stuart 

 period there was an extraordinary and very rapid im- 

 provement in the breed of horses. Arabs, barbs, and 

 other Eastern sires were imported in great numbers, 

 and in a few short years their influence had been so 

 marked that the native breed showed marvellous im- 

 provement, and doubtless the sportsmen of the period 

 found that they could be carried at a higher rate of 

 speed than they had been accustomed to. Coeval with 

 this improvement in horseflesh came the gradual dis- 

 appearance of the stag and buck, owing to the 

 extended cultivation of the land, and the clearing away 

 of hundreds of thousands of acres of forest. Men who 

 were keen on hunting found the country more open, 



