108 SYSTEM OF KENNEL AND 



and if there is no earth-stopping done for a 

 second litter, the first will suffer more severely 

 than intended, or you must go home. The weeding 

 of the litter, however, ought to depend very much 

 upon their locality. Those bred in pit places ought 

 to be tenderly dealt with, stirring them up a little 

 to let them know " what's what," and unstopping 

 the earths when they have had a sufficient rattling. 

 In large woodlands, more may be taken out of each 

 litter if required, since when the regular hunting 

 season commences, foxes will always resort to the 

 big woods. Although, generally speaking, not 

 more than one member out of the same litter should 

 be killed in a day, we have occasionally been 

 obliged to deviate from this rule, in ticklish places, 

 where a litter has been saved literally to be killed 

 off by the hounds in one day, if possible. This 

 may be called a queer method of fox -preserving, 

 yet there were more than one or two owners or 

 renters of coverts who bred up litters of cubs for 

 us on these conditions, besides keepers to whose 

 wishes we deemed it prudent to yield, and if we 

 had not yielded, the cubs would have disappeared. 

 We remember one morning killing two out of a 

 litter thus circumstanced, which we thought more 

 than suHicient, when the owner of the covert not 

 a very large one said, " You are not going home 

 yet?" 



" Quite time we should/' was our reply ; " a 

 brace in one day." 



" Oh, no ; there are five in the litter, and as I 

 have viewed one going away, some little time ago, 



