OS THE IHTNTING FIELD 



of courtly phraseology. " IV/io sliot the fox? " is an exclama- 

 tion that has sent many a skulking vagabond out of the 

 public-house, when a group of honest rustics have been 

 exulting over a day's sport. Indeed, the lower orders set an 

 example well worthy the imitation of many who call them- 

 selves their superiors in their respect for the fox. They look 

 upon him as a sort of privileged animal. He even seems to 

 shed a sort of lustre over those in any way connected with 

 him. Ask the first people you meet in a village where the 

 constable lives, and they cither can't or won't tell you, but 

 ask where the man lives " wot stops the fox earths," and they 

 will not only tell you, but accompany you to the door. This 

 is as it should be, and long may it continue so. It is this that 

 gets Earth-stoppers — it is this that makes men nervous and 

 fidgety in their beds, lest they oversleep themselves, and very 

 possibly causes them to bolt master reynard's door before he 

 has left the house. They are anxious for the sport themselves, 

 and anxious for the amusement of the country at large. They 

 feel that the honours of the day are greatly dependent on 

 them, and are correspondingly alive to their duties. 



Mr. Daniel, in his " Rural Sports," says, "The fox knows 

 how to ensure safety, by providing himself with an asylum, 

 which he either does by dispossessing the badger, or digs the 

 earth himself; in either case it is so contrived as to afford the 

 best security to the inhabitants by being situated under hard 

 ground, the roots of trees, &c., and is, besides, furnished by 

 the fox with proper outlets, through which he may escape 

 from every quarter ; here he retires from pressing dangers, and 

 here brings up his young ; so that the fox is not a wanderer, 

 but lives in a settled domestic state." Daniel makes him 

 quite a respectable character, a housekeeper in fact, with a 

 back and front door to his residence, though we cannot say 

 we ever saw an earth with such accommodation. In running 

 to ground where rabbits abound, it is not uncommon for 



