HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



poultry losses, a matter of some difficulty among 

 an imaginative race like the Irish peasantry. One 

 such claim is before me as I write, set forth in a 

 big round hand with impressive flourishes of 

 penmanship. It reads: 



" LIST OF FOWLS TAKEN BY THE FOX 

 12 Turkies." 



There are many troubles and anxieties attending 

 the successful running of a pack of hounds of which 

 the average foxhunter little thinks. It was a rule at 

 this period to turn down a brace of cubs in good 

 coverts where no litters had shown themselves in 

 the spring. The birthplace of such cubs was always 

 a matter on which precise details must be forth- 

 coming. Lord Shannon apparently wrote to Lord 

 Naas in June, 1858, calling his attention to the 

 more than doubtful origin of some cubs lately 

 acquired for such purposes by the Kildare. " The 

 fact is," he wrote, "it is very difficult to control 

 these foxcatchers. When they live within easy 

 reach, as in this case, of hunting coverts, they are apt 

 not to confine themselves to the mountains. I know 

 that those employed by Lord Fermoy (who has no 

 country save by usurpation) are not at all par- 

 ticular. I am, of course, quite satisfied that you 

 would not knowingly allow foxes to be taken from a 

 hunting country, and my object was merely to 

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