163 



KOTITIA VENATICA. 



oue-leggocl hen-pheasant should be kidnapped. This is as illiberal as it 

 is deceitful, for it is as totally impossible for a pack of hounds to be 

 taught their work Avithout plenty of cubs to enter them to, as it would 

 be for a lad to attempt to construe a play of Sophocles without having 

 first learnt the Greek grammar. No animal Avas ever created in vain, 

 and if the good that foxes do was weighed against the mischief of which 

 they are very frequently and wrongfully accused, I am convinced that 

 the former would greatly preponderate in the scale of an impartial judge. 

 As a convincing proof of the utility of these animals, I may mention 

 the remains of the ])rey belonging to a htter of cubs which I saw the 

 other day in the neighbom-hood where I was then staying. In a 

 large kennel, or bathering place, as it is sometimes called, we discovered 

 the skins of five hedgehogs, the mutilated remains of nearly a dozen 

 moles, four or five rats, rabbits' legs, the feathers of small birds, two 

 frogs, and the half-consumed carcass of one old soHtary hen ; but it was 

 evident, from her extreme age, that she must have ceased to produce, 

 and consequently woidd have been of no eartlily use to the farmer from 

 whom she had been taken. The chief food of foxes, although I can- 

 didly allow that they at times destroy game and poultry, consists of all 

 kinds of reptiles and insects, but more particularly field mice, of which 

 any one may be thoroughly convinced, if he will take the trouble of 

 either examining the animals' billeting, or of following the nightly track 

 of one in the snow ; he would then plainly see how cm'lously they hunt 

 and examine every tuft of grass and stubble cock, and where they pounce 

 upon the mice and devour them. 



^J ^ 



It would not be fair to mention names on such a subject, but the fact 

 is beyond question, and it bears so closely and forcibly upon what I have 

 been saying about the destruction of foxes, that I shall mention an anec- 

 dote relating to it. The hounds of a noble lord,* Avho some years ago 

 hunted one of the midland counties, were advertised to meet at the co- 

 vers of a gentleman, which were in those days more celebrated for the 

 * The late Lord Middleton. 



