THE DEATH. 



WE have pretty ■svcll rim througli our hunting scenes, and now conae to one that all are 

 anxious to witness ; when the fox, tu'cd, jaded, and worn-out, turns for one desperate 

 struggle with his pursuers, a struggle which, with fearful odds against him, he 

 gallantly sustains to the last, and then dies without a sound of pain escaping him. His 

 race is run ; his mission fulfilled ; and yet when he is held aloft over the heads of the 

 expectant pack, his is no ignoble fate. He is not destined, like an ox or sheep, to be 

 eaten and forgotten ; for he has proved himself worthy of houoiir, and for a 

 season or two has given the pack a rattler, whenever he was found, and at last, after 

 scattering the field to the winds, has succumbed to his fate. Many a fireside story will be 

 related of the sport he afforded, and his memorj^ live green in the recollection of hunting 

 men for ages to come. Perhaps his history will be written or his honours sung by a 

 Tyrta^us of the field. How different a fate had his lot been east in some game-pre- 

 serving locality, where, after ch-aggiug out miserable hours with his leg in a traj), some 

 velveteen-coated keeper would have knocked him on the head, and left his carcass to rot 

 away under ground. Or, may be, when taking his favoiu-ite rabbit supper, he would 

 have found that the same kind-hearted individual has cbessed it for him, and that death 

 by strychnine, with all its horrors, was in store. 



Even these perils escaped, there are others scarcely less fearful that await an individual 

 of the vulpine race, and what will be his lot if taken, when the fox-stealer, with dog, net, 

 and beUs, sets out on his nefarious excursion, is easily conceived. Torn from liis snug 

 earth and greenwood home, thrust into a stifling sack, and carried to the neighbouring 

 tovm, kept in a corn-bin or some worse place, until a fox-murdering keeper thinks 

 he may allow his master's coverts to be di-awn, and wants a commercial gentleman to 

 save his credit and secure his tip for a find ; then turned out confused and bewildered in a 

 strange place, knowing not where to fly for shelter, or in what direction to urge his flight 

 — how cruel is his lot ! Death at length overtakes him, and he is ignominously tlu-o^vn on 



one side as a d bagman, because the pack refuse to break him up. Should this be 



spared him, he may fare j'et worse, in having to afford amusement to a lot of tinpot 

 sportsmen, with a scratch pack of rough-and-ready dogs, open to hunt anything and 

 everything, and with no great respect for constituted rights and their neighboxu-s' 

 property. Xo, as the death-stroke can come to the soldier in no grander form than from 

 his foe in battle ; so the true end of a fox is to be run well into and rolled over in the 

 open. Then, as we have before said, if he has been well found, well hunted, and 

 handsomely killed, his fame will be handed down to posterity, and his prowess recorded 

 in song. All this time, howcA'cr, we have been treating of only one actor in the piece, 

 though he certainly can lay claim to " a leading part : " but both the huutsmau 

 and the hovmds may fairly be supposed to find some exultation in their victory. For 

 this the former has been trained from boyhood, in the science of woodcraft, 

 untU his knowledge of the fox's natiu-o and habits is such that he seems to 

 know his line by instinct directly he is found, and when even the delicate noses 



