40 THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



who tampers with foxes, and does not allow them fair 

 play. These men have been told by their masters that 

 they (the masters) expect hounds to find when their 

 coverts are drawn, and unfortunately many covert 

 owners and shooting tenants are quite satisfied if a find 

 does really take place, and are delighted when a fox is 

 killed which has been found on their ground. What 

 so many of them are unable to discriminate is that 

 there are foxes and foxes, and that the fox they may 

 have been rejoicing over has been a miserable apology 

 for the real, wild fox. Of course if the covert owner is 

 friendly with the master, or even with members of the 

 hunt, the true state of the case will be generally re- 

 vealed to him, but, as has been already stated, he is so 

 often a comparative, and sometimes a total stranger, and 

 to him a fox is a fox, that he duly credits his keeper 

 with the find. That the fox was a bagman, or one 

 which had been kept in captivity, he is quite unaware, 

 and, as many of every large field are when this happens, 

 also in ignorance of the real state of the case, it is more 

 than likely that he will never be told. 



One of the tricks where this half-hearted system of 

 fox preservation is in vogue is to watch carefully in the 

 spring of the year for the vixens, and when they have 

 been located, to trap and destroy them, removing the 

 cubs to some safe place where they are brought up by 

 hand. The latter are fairly well looked after during 

 the summer, because it is absolutely necessary that 

 cubs should be forthcoming in the autumn. But they 

 are semi-tame foxes, and the keeper knows that when 

 they are turned out hounds will snap up most of them, 

 and that the others, never having been taught to pro- 

 vide for themselves, will quickly die. What the keeper 

 is looking for is a brave show of cubs at the proper 



