294 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



having no further use for him, good hunter and free with 

 hounds, without reserve." 



Another little turkey incident did I learn, as, in company 

 with half a dozen good farmers, I smoked my way homewards- 

 from the last day's hunting in 1887. Conversation was not 

 unnaturally of the Fox ; and so it passed on to poultry. My 

 farmer-friends were good enough to champion Mr. Fox stoutly 

 averring him to be more often maligned than guilty, especially 

 at a season of the year when cold and hunger pinch the un- 

 employed, while many a fowl is fat. One then took up his- 

 parable which I craved and with permission here it is. The 

 turkey-roost of a certain farmyard, not twenty miles from here, 

 had been laid under contribution more than once during the 

 recent autumn. Of course Reynard had been helping himself; 

 were there not feathers scattered about ? and was not an old 

 gobbler's head and neck found lying on the ground outside ? 

 What further proof was needed? Reynard is a roost-robber 

 by profession, tradition, and notoriety. The farmer, though, was- 

 a sportsman, and troubled himself as little about the matter as 

 consideration for the gude wife's feelings, and regard for his own 

 peace of mind, would allow. He " loved a fox," he said, and " he 

 shouldn't make any complaint." Moreover, he had taught his- 

 little girl not only to ride, but to give forth a telling view 

 holloa that would have done credit to James Pigg. The 

 opportunity soon came for the maiden to exhibit the accom- 

 plishment to some purpose. She had just retired to bed, when 

 flutter and commotion were to be heard in the yard. The fox 

 was in the turkey pen ! It could be nothing else. So, flinging 

 open the window, the little lady sent forth into the frosty night 

 a lusty holloa that might have been heard from one end of 

 Badby Wood to the other ; and, pleased with her effort, she 

 repeated it again and again in the same shrill key. 'Twas too 

 dark to see ; but her fox broke covert with a rumpus that 



