LETTER XXV. 



In countries where keepers are paid so much for each 

 litter of cubs found in their district, they will only tithe 

 them a little before they are found by the hounds, to 

 receive their fee, but when that is received, the work of 

 destruction commences with those left, and the old vixen 

 is often the only one spared. I have found a good litter 

 of foxes in such places on the first day of hunting, but 

 not a young fox afterwards. My plan was, when at the 

 mercy of a keeper, to allow him so much for every fox 

 found, but nothing for the litter. Some were such de- 

 termined fox-killers that we could not satisfy them, ex- 

 cept at such cost as to create dissatisfaction among all 

 the rest. With them I adopted another plan, which 

 bothered them not a little. 1 kept on drawing their 

 coverts, fox or no fox, as often as I possibly could. 



One man, who had some pretty coverts, which always 

 had held a fox before his appointment as keeper, I was 

 quite satisfied trapped the foxes, although we could 

 never catch him in the act. I paid his coverts a visit 

 pretty often, and one day he remonstrated, saying it was 

 no use the hounds coming, as the foxes never would lie 

 there, and I only drove his pheasants out of bounds, to 

 be shot by poachers, who were waiting for them, when 

 the hounds disturbed the wood. " Well," I said, "keeper, 



