106 THE SPORT OF KINGS 



to be, neither are they of the right sort. Now I 

 am not for a moment wishful to infer that this 

 shooting tenant does not wish to have foxes in his 

 coverts. He says he does, and as he is in other 

 respects a good fellow — mind, I am not taking 

 into consideration the pot-hunting shooting tenant 

 who takes, with two or three more of his kidney, 

 as much shooting as any one will let to him, and kills 

 everything he can eat or sell, — we are bound to 

 believe him. Yet what is it that takes place when 

 hounds go to draw his coverts ? All during 

 summer you have heard of what fine litters of 

 foxes he had. When hounds go they find three 

 or four foxes ; in exceptionally favourable circum- 

 stances there may be half-a-dozen. A cub-hunting 

 sort of day ensues, foxes hang to the woods, and 

 those that are killed — there are sure to be one or 

 two killed — are, as might have been expected, 

 cubs. On a second visit a fox takes to the open, 

 he rings about, seldom getting more than a couple 

 of miles away, hounds get a view at him, and roll 

 him over — a cub. And the consequence of this is 

 that some parts of the country get unduly ridden 

 over, that a good deal of damage is done to crops 

 and fences in a certain locality, and that the 

 farmers not unnaturally get annoyed. But let us 

 inquire the reason of this change for the worse, for 

 in many countries I know it is a change. In the 

 first place I attribute it to the want of knowledge 

 of woodcraft in the master who rents the shooting. 

 He has all the country instincts, he was perhaps 

 brought up in the country, but he has had to 

 make his living, and ultimately his fortune, " in 

 crowded city pent." He may have kept up a 

 certain amount of mechanical skill in his hardly- 



