HORSES AND HOUNDS. 1G3 



with a rabbit in lier mouth, to her litter. When I kept fox- 

 hounds, there was a farmer, whose house and farmyard stood 

 within one • field of a very favourite covert, which produced 

 always one, and generally two litters of cubs every season. He 

 told me he never lost any of his poultry by them ; and, what 

 was more extraordinary still, that one summer one of his 

 hens hatched a brood of chickens in the wood hedge, not a 

 hundred yards from the earth where the cubs were bred, and 

 brought them all safe home. Some people may fancy I am 

 romancing, but I am doing nothing of the kind. The state- 

 ments I make are perfectly true. My own farm-yard was sur- 

 rounded by coverts, in which I had two or three litters of foxes 

 bred every season ; and although poultry of every kind roamed 

 at large about the fields, we seldom missed a fowl, duck, 

 or goose. 



The really wild fox does very little mischief either to game or 

 poultry ; but I must admit that the Gallic importations play 

 the rogue in a hen-roost occasionally. Tliere are certainly dis- 

 tinct species of foxes, and their habits are different also. My 

 brother fox-hunters may think it a strange thing for a master of 

 hounds to do, but if a farmer complained to me of a fox visiting 

 his hen-roost, I gave him directions to shoot him, if he could, 

 well knowing he must be either a cur or mangy. Does itever 

 occur to game preservers that their pheasants are roosting in the 

 coverts long before foxes are stirring, and that a fox leaves the 

 wood as the shades of evening fall, and hunts for Ms game in 

 the open fields ? I do not mean to say if a ivounded bird falls in 

 his way he will not cf«t;ch him — he would be a fool of a fox if he 

 did not — but the chief food upon which foxes subsist are rabbits, 

 mice, beetles, and even frogs. Hares will, of course, fall in 

 their way occasionally ; but, as the hare is fleeter of foot than 

 the fox, it is her own fault if she does not escape him._ 



Some old women, not in petticoats, believe foxes will destroy 

 anything and everything short of the human species ; and one 

 veritable old woman believed this also, and was nearly 

 frightened to death on account of her habhy, as will appear from 

 the following run, chronicled some years ago, and which, for the 

 amusement of those who like to read good runs, even although 

 they have taken place in bygone days, I copy literatim : — 



" February, 1794. — On Saturday, the pack of fox -hounds belonging to the 

 Duke of Beaufort unkennelled a fox at Stanton Park, which they ran so 

 sharp, that Eeynard was obliged to take refuge in a small cottage at Castle- 

 coombe, where he entered, and jumped into a cradle (out of which an old 

 woman had, but a few minutes beiore, taken an infant). His clamorous foes 

 soon rushed in, and seized their victim ; the old woman not a little affrighted 

 at these unexpected guests." 



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