364 SPORT IN EUROPE 



permit hounds and horsemen to cross their fields and enter their 

 cov^erts, and of course it is very necessary for a Master of Fox- 

 hounds to keep, if possible, on the right side with everyone. But it 

 is doubtful if fox-hunting can long continue in a congested country 

 like England. Bad agricultural seasons and barbed wire point to its 

 doom. Fox-hunting makes many bitter enemies among farmers in 

 a way few sportsmen think of; and so does a branch of sport 

 most nearly allied to it. 



Harriers cause far more mischief than people imagine. A hare in- 

 variably runs in a ring. Round and round upon one farm, or perhaps a 



couple, go the hounds and the horsemen, breaking the 

 Harriers. 



fences, leaving the gates ajar, and churning up the land. 



It is not necessary to point out that the farmer, who in nearly all cases 



finds it hard to make both ends meet, is unable to contemplate the 



scene with joy. 



Ere we leave the subject of fox-hunting, it is certainly curious to 



note how very differently the fox is appreciated in Scotland and in 



England. In most districts of Scotland he is shot 

 ^ and trapped whenever a chance occurs, while in the 



southern country to shoot or trap a fox would be con- 

 sidered little short of murder. Even as I write, a tale reaches me 

 from the Midlands of a Scotch farmer who had taken a farm near 

 Peterborough and deliberately shot a fox that the Fitzwilliam hounds 

 were pursuing at the time. I heard that the man said he had shot 

 them in Scotland, and he meant to do so in England ; and I also 

 heard that the indignation of the other farmers in the district was 

 so great that they meant boycotting him in Peterborough Market. 



