HUNT SERVANTS. 165 



than not by the lamb's own shepherd's dog. FooHshly, when 

 lambs die, the shepherds give them to their dogs. When the 

 larder is empty, doggy, being sagacious, forages for himself. 

 One certain way in which you can tell if a fox has killed a 

 lamb and begun eating it, is that he will do so by making a 

 hole in the side of the chest under one or other fore leg, and 

 getting at the heart. If a dog begins to eat it, he does so by 

 gnawing off the head or making a hole in the throat in endeavour- 

 ing to do so. I do not say that foxes never kill lambs, but I say 

 that such an occurrence is very rare. When it can be proved, 

 the lamb should be paid for ; but it requires good proof first. 



Three cases have come to my knowledge, within the last 

 four or five years, in which farmers' belief in the harm done by 

 foxes has been eradicated. On two of these occasions the men 

 who had declared war against foxes made a party of three or 

 four with guns, and in both instances they slew the culprit. 

 There was a who-hoop ! and a rush at the animal they had 

 bowled over ; in one instance it was the farmer's own sheep 

 dog, in the other it was his neighbour's. In the other case 

 the farmer, if not actually convinced, was effectually cured of 

 his wish to destroy foxes. He sat up in a tree for two or three 

 nights waiting for his enemy. On the last night he went to 

 sleep, fell out of the tree, broke several of his ribs, and vowed 

 that for the future he would never try to shoot a fox. As 

 regards the claims for loss of poultry, they increase and multi- 

 ply to a degree that threatens to make it one of the heaviest 

 items in the expense of keeping hounds. My hunting country 

 is a very large one. I should say, if the boundaries were 

 measured right round, it would be at least 160 miles. We have 

 divided it as well as we can into districts, and in each of these 

 some gentleman has kindly undertaken the very difficult task 

 of adjudicating as to whether the claim shall be paid or not. We 

 make a rule that no poultry shall be paid for that are not shut 

 up at night If a fox burglariously enters a hen roost and takes 

 and destroys, they must be paid for. The worst of a fox is that 

 he likes killing better than eating. He is the prototype of the 



