288 THE DIARY OF A HUNTSMAN 



mangy foxes, for one mangy fox may infect half 

 the earths in a country. 



Another advantage of this plan is, that when 

 the earths are opened at the end of February, 

 although stopped till then, the vixen foxes will soon 

 find out that they are open, — indeed they have 

 been known to inhabit an earth which has been 

 stopped within a week after it was opened, although 

 it had been stopped the whole winter before ; but the 

 dog foxes not having the same motive for seeking 

 the earths, do not find it out so soon, and conse- 

 quently do not go to ground so readily as a vixen. 

 Therefore if at this time, in March, there are earths 

 open, it will probably be a dog fox which the 

 hounds are running ; and one of the greatest ad- 

 vantages of having earths at all, if not the only 

 one, is that it enables hounds to hunt later in the 

 season, as the vixens will generally go to ground. 

 But this does not make up for the disadvantages ; 

 and it would be much better to lose a few days' 

 hunting. 



Having adopted this plan with the greatest 

 success and satisfaction to all parties, although the 

 intelligence at first to some gentlemen, when it was 

 proposed by the writer, created much alarm, on 

 his hunting a new country, with the dread that it 



