LETTER XIII. 



I WILL now endeavour to point out how game may be 

 preserved and vermin kept down, without having re- 

 course to those most objectionable means generally 

 resorted to for their destruction, steel traps and poison, 

 which have been considered by ignorant keepers as in- 

 dispensable to that purpose. I would also, with all due 

 submission, beg to remind large game preservers, that it 

 is quite possible for them to have an abundant supply of 

 game for their own and friends' amusement, and also to 

 keep a few foxes for their sporting neighbours in scarlet. 

 It is quite an erroneous opinion, that foxes subsist 

 entirely upon hares, rabbits, and pheasants. From long 

 acquaintance with and careful observance of their habits, 

 from the time they first leave the earth, where they have 

 been bred as cubs, I have been enabled to gain a tole- 

 rably correct insight into their mode of living. When a 

 boy, I took great pleasure in watching the proceedings 

 of a litter of cubs, which were laid up in a small brake, 

 about two fields from the house in which I then lived. 

 In the evening, during the summer holidays, I used to 

 go down, about eight o'clock, and sit under a tree, near 

 the earth, to watch their gambols. As the sun dropped 

 below the horizon, they made their appearance at the 

 mouth of the earth, looking cautiously and stealthily 



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