SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 259 



Farquharson's in Dorsetshire, which now affords 

 occasional employment to three establishments. 

 Under the old regime a larger extent of country 

 was monopolized than could be sufficiently hunted 

 during the season. The big woods or forests were 

 resorted to only in the early autumn for cub- 

 hunting, or late in the spring to wind up with a 

 May fox. Now this course is decidedly antagonistic 

 to good sport. The big woods, from being so 

 seldom disturbed., foxes would of course resort to, 

 and there remain secure from molestation the 

 greater part of the year. Then what was the use 

 of them? They might as well be underground 

 for any sport they afforded, and, as " Satan always 

 finds some work for idle hands to do," probably 

 they would, during their long vacation, acquire 

 mischievous habits by purloining farmers' poultry 

 where rabbits were not in sufficient supply. Bad, 

 lazy, Leadenhall foxes are the very worst of all 

 the vulpine race, and like black sheep in any 

 community, aristocratical, clerical, mercantile, 

 or quocunque nomine gaudent, bring discredit 

 upon the class of society to which they belong. 

 We have always regarded a bad fox in the same 

 light as a mad dog, and although short enough, 

 and too short, of the animal in our own country, 

 our advice to farmers was invariably to " kill 

 every brute of that sort you find prowling about 

 your farmyard." Those foxes which rob hen 

 roosts are either half tame, from being housed 

 too long as cubs before turned loose, or mangy. 

 The sooner they are disposed of the better, and 



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