THE FOX 269 



not properly attended to, he will scratch himself to 

 death, or become mifit to live, if fastened up and 

 not at liberty to use his o^vn remedy. The proof 

 that foxes do recover their health and strength 

 after losing all their hair or fur, is the fact of their 

 showing extraordinary sport with hounds ; indeed 

 some of the best runs on record are with mangy 

 foxes. One of the best the writer ever had with 

 his own hounds was from a patch of gorse on Ilsley 

 Downs. The fox went away almost in sight of the 

 hounds, and continued in sight of the men for 

 several miles over the do^\iis, a racing pace, and 

 was killed after forty minutes almost without a 

 check, when it was found he had scarcely a hair on 

 his body, and not one on his brush, or rather what 

 should have been his brush. This run will not be 

 forgotten by many Oxonians. The Avi'iter had seen 

 during the run that the fox was mangy, and when 

 in a wood, and getting near a large breeding earth, 

 he rode wide of the hounds, and got on the earth 

 just in time to prevent the fox going in, and in 

 consequence she was killed within fifty yards of it ; 

 and, although it was a vixen, it was not a source of 

 regret, though so late in the season that the earths 

 were opened. It would have been no mercy to 

 have saved her, for if she had lived to breed a htter 



