EARTH-STOPPING 287 



falls a victim to the keeper's gun at these main 

 earths, for many have been known to place them- 

 selves on a tree over the earth, or near it, and so 

 shoot the old vixen at the mouth of the earth ; 

 indeed, more keepers than one have been actually 

 caught watching in a tree, with their gun, for that 

 purpose. 



But all this is avoided if the cubs are bred above 

 ground as no man then knows where they are, till 

 probably he has found them out by accident ; and 

 few men of this sort can prowl about in covers to 

 find them without being seen. And if it does 

 happen that they find them, probably they may be 

 too young to take ; and when they go again, in- 

 tending to take them, the old vixen will have 

 saved them the trouble, for if once a person visits 

 cubs which are bred above ground, the vixen never 

 fails to remove them. Also, when it is not known 

 where they are, the old one has a better chance of 

 escaping the traps, etc., which are so often found 

 set. On one occasion the ^vi-iter found no less 

 than eight iron traps at one earth where a fox had 

 gone in. 



Independent of the above advantages of having 

 no earths, or of having them stopped in this way for 

 the season, there is not the same chance of having 



