CHESTER'S STORY 97 



or three days and nights. The foot being now as it 

 were benumbed and almost insensible, I in order to 

 save my Ufe fairly bit it off with my teeth, and thus 

 released myself from the trap. Not long after this 

 had occurred a more tragical affair took place in this 

 very same covert. In the early part of the month 

 of JNIarch in the present year 1843, I was lying, 

 as was my custom, in a thick and broad hedge, 

 when late in the day I was much frightened by the 

 approach of the hounds, passing near me rather 

 quickly to my great relief, for it appeared that 

 they had not found a fox all day. They immedi- 

 ately begun drawing the covert, and shortly after- 

 wards a fox was seen with an iron trap fast to his 

 foreleg, which was broken above the knee. In the 

 course of a few minutes the fatal " whoop " was 

 heard, the signal of his death. 



During the tumult which ensued amongst the 

 gentlemen who had been hunting, an honest farmer, 

 whose land surrounded the covert, came up and 

 stated that a short time before he had found in a 

 field close by a large trap exactly of the same sort, 

 which had in it two of a fox's toes. They belonged 

 to the foot which I parted with myself. It is 

 impossible to describe the sensation created by this 

 additional circumstance ; but it caused amongst 



H 



