General Remarks. 113 



generally supposed, and when consuming one 



I thing he is not eating another. Perhaps, Reynard's 



I favourite fruit is gooseberries dead-ripe, for cubs 



kept as pets have been known to clear a bush 



I completely of its crop. 



A covert in which foxes are carefully preserved, 

 and left undisturbed, is occasionally drawn blank, 

 to the consternation and bewilderment of the 

 owner, and it will not be out of place to relate 

 several peculiar influences which have caused the 

 needful to be lacking. In one case a boy was 

 employed to scare rooks from a field newly sown 

 with wheat neai a fox- covert, and the morninof 

 hounds w^ere expected managed to get possession 

 of a tin horn, w hich he blew with what under other 

 circumstances would have been commendable skill 

 and perseverance. When hounds came every fox 

 had left that covert some hours before, and it was 

 drawn blank the hrst time for many seasons. In 

 another case rabbits had been tainted out for 

 shooting, and the gas-tar used had proved too 

 much for the foxes. In yet another instance a 

 well-known covert was enclosed with iron fencing, 

 and the proprietor took it into his head to dress 

 this with tar just before the opening of the hunting 

 season. The smell was, of course, outrageous, 

 and as it lasted for weeks not a fox remained in 



I 



