NOJITIA VENATIOA. 1G3 



uuiubor of pheasants which they harboured tlian for the good runs which 

 they atforilctl to foxhounds. As it was Avell known that there was no 

 chance of a find, the keeper — as I am charitable enough to suppose that 

 it must have been done without his master's connivance — procured a 

 bagman, Avhich avms designed to be put down in due form when the 

 hounds were drawinj^ ; this disgraceful intention having come, by some 

 means or other, to the ears of the noble owner of the pack, he was de- 

 termined to be even with the intended perpetrator of the insult. Hiding 

 up to the cover-side exactly as the hand of his watch rested upon the 

 appointed hour, he thus addressed his huntsman : — ■" My hounds meet 

 at half-past ten, and I wait for no one ; throw them into cover, Harry. 

 In they went, and a blank draw was the result. " Why, there is not 

 even the sUghtest touch of a fox," says his lordship, and away he trotted 

 to another cover seven miles distant, leaving the keeper, the bagman, 

 and a large party of gentlemen in the lurch, who were at breakfast, and 

 anxiously expecting the arrival of the hounds. 



In some of the more remote districts of England, where, from the im- 

 handy and almost impenetrable nature of the woodlands, fox-hunting in 

 the more legitimate way is seldom or never practised, the amusement of 

 fox-mobbing is carried on during the falls of snow in each winter, by the 

 farmers and country-people, with the greatest perseverance. It is usual, 

 in many of these rough settlements, to brew purposely a barrel of extra 

 strong beer, to be broached upon the occasion of this annual hunt ; and 

 if it should so happen that there is not sufficient snow to enable these 

 exterminators of the vulpine race to carry out their mm'derous design, 

 the beer is kept till the next season, when a more fitting opportunity 

 offers itself to carry on their extermination, and to regale themselves 

 upon the beer, which, by its advanced age, had acquired an additional 

 strength and flavour. This dreadfid system was at one time carried on 

 to a great extent in many of the Warwickshire woodlands, even where 

 it was perfectly practicable to take hounds dming the autumn for the 

 purpose of cub hunting. 



When Sir Bellingham Graham hunted the Atherston country, he en- 

 deavoured to put a stop to a system which well nigh threatened to drain 

 his woodlands of aU his best foxes, by inviting to a grand dinner the 

 Avhole of the farmers who might then reside in the neighbourhood of the 

 Corley and Maxtock Woods, and where the amusement of fox-mobbing 

 had been annually carried on to a very great extent ; but such inveterate 

 vulpecides had these rascals become, that the very first snow Avhich feU 

 during the succeeding year soon dissipated all their ijromises to preserve 

 the foxes for the worthy baronet, and they fell to the work of destroying 

 the animals with as great alacrity as if Sir BeUingham had never even 

 invited them to a dinner, nor received the shghtest promise to abstain 

 from their, to him, most annoying amusement. 



At the time Mr. Corbet hunted Warwickshire, the practice of fox- 

 stealing was carried on to such an extent in some of his best country ; 

 for instance, Woolford and Wichford woods, and most of the covers on 

 the Long Compton side of the country, that he was absolutely obliged 

 to pay " black mail" to the poachers and fox-catchers who chiefly re- 

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