280 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



will provide a keeper, who shall give you nearly twice as 

 much game as you have at present, and foxes as well." 

 In one or two cases I did provide keepers, who proved 

 my assertion to be correct. 



The extraordinary dislike manifested by some game- 

 preservers against foxes, proves one of two things — either 

 excessive ignorance, or the most narrow-minded selfish- 

 ness. I am not a master of foxhounds now, neither are 

 my coverts drawn by hounds, yet I do not allow foxes to 

 be killed by the keeper, well knowing the very little 

 mischief they do to game. In one covert I have several 

 foxes and as much game as I require ; nor have I found, 

 in the last two seasons, either a single hare or pheasant 

 killed by them. There are plenty of rabbits, it is true, 

 to which they are most welcome ; and the old vixen does 

 me great service in digging out the stops of young rab- 

 bits, in the spring of the year. My keeper admits that 

 one stoat does more mischief in one month than a fox 

 will in three or four, among rabbits, which, of course, 

 like all other keepers, he considers rather in the light of 

 his own property. The woodman s pet continues his 

 coursing, and last week ran down four rabbits in one day, 

 three of which were taken from him, 



1 think I have now written quite enough to prove that 

 the fox is, of all vermin, the least destructive of game ; 

 and 1 trust game-preservers will not listen to every idle 

 tale brought them by their keepers, and wantonly destroy 

 an animal which affords so much diversion to their 

 sporting brethren in scarlet, without interfering with 

 their own. 



It is scarcely necessary to make allusion to bag foxes, 

 which I believe are seldom, if ever, in these days, turned 



