NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



a sport to be religiously encouraged and not destroyed, 

 in whose coverts pheasants and wild foxes are produced 

 together, and the master of hounds and his pack are 

 received with a genuine and hearty welcome. But 

 the very reverse of this is far too often seen. Men are 

 more and more becoming owners and lessees of great 

 shootings, who not only take little interest in hunting, 

 but do all in their power to crush out and discourage 

 it. 1 This may not be done openly ; there are a score of 

 ways, all well understood by a certain class of keeper, 

 by which the wild fox can be exterminated or driven 

 away. Among these enemies of fox-hunting, the man 

 who has become suddenly rich, who has been reared in 

 towns, and cares little for the ancient interests and 

 traditions of the countryside, and especially that of fox- 

 hunting, is too often in evidence. He is too old, too 

 soft, or has too little nerve to acquire the difficult art of 

 riding to hounds ; but he can and does acquire a certain 

 amount of skill in shooting. He spends money lavishly 

 in rearing pheasants and providing big " shoots " ; his 

 wealth, his magnificent entertainments, his holocausts 

 of game, bring him quickly the friends and the para- 

 graphic notoriety that he desires. In the opinion of 

 this class of person, wild foxes and foxhounds have no 

 business near his coverts, and his keepers take good 

 care that his private ideas are carried out. It is true 

 that this type of pheasant preserver dare not plainly 

 declare himself the bitter enemy of the fox-hunter. 



1 Shooting- speculators and syndicates are among- the chief offenders 

 in this respect. As a rule they have few interests or friends in the district 

 in which they operate, and are therefore almost absolutely unaffected by 

 the annoyance and dislike of their neighbours. It may be possible, in 

 future, to get rid of some of these foes to fox-hunting, in the richer hunts, 

 by hiring, and re-letting to shooting- tenants, who will preserve foxes in 

 reason, the woodlands and coverts from which Reynard has been banished 

 and destroyed. That, of course, means further considerable burdens 

 upon the hunt funds. 



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