THE FOX 257 



looking whenever he went in covers abounding 

 with pheasants and foxes at the same time. 



The following is a system which has been known 

 to be adopted by keepers who are determined 

 enemies to foxes, and who wish their masters to 

 beheve, not only that they are very attentive to 

 their duty, but that foxes do much more harm 

 than they really do, as they say (it being the 

 time they have cubs). The keeper adopts this 

 plan : he shoots a hen pheasant, and having cut 

 it into several pieces he lays the feathers, which 

 are bloody, about the cover, probably in twenty 

 different places. Shortly afterwards he begs his 

 master to go and see the damage the fox has done, 

 and takes him round to all the places where the 

 feathers, etc., are, and persuades his master that 

 there has been a hen pheasant killed at each place. 

 This trick is played at other seasons as well ; by 

 which means, having apparently shown such a con- 

 vincing proof, he often gains permission to kill the 

 fox, — " Only in a quiet way, you know, sir ! " 



There are other charges against foxes which 

 they do not deserve. One is that of taking away 

 lambs from a sheepfold. The wiiter does not 

 mean to say that such a thing has never happened, 

 — though it has never been proved to him, — but 



