EARTH-STOPPING 239 



omits to stop one or two earths, so that if the fox 

 is hard pressed he may save himself. But some- 

 thing very different to what the keeper wishes 

 takes place. Hounds come a second time to the 

 coverts ; they draw the whole range of them and 

 they don't find, for the simple reason that all the 

 foxes are underground. 



Some years ago I remember a very remarkable 

 instance of this. We had been cub-hunting early 

 in the season, and a finer show of foxes I never 

 saw on any estate. Every covert we went into 

 there was one litter or two, and we could not have 

 seen fewer than between twenty and thirty foxes. 

 In the last covert we drew I saw six cross the ride, 

 and hounds happened to get away with one of 

 them, in spite of all whippers-in could do. They 

 killed this fox, and when we went back to draw 

 again, for there was a rumour that there was a 

 sickly fox in the wood, they found again im- 

 mediately. 



With such a show of foxes as this, of course 

 some thinning was necessary, and some two brace 

 were killed, fairly and without any digging. Next 

 time we went to draw those coverts there were 

 only one or two foxes in them, and long before 

 the season ended they were drawn blank. Of 

 course, under such circumstances the number of 

 foxes killed on the cub-hunting day was multiplied 

 by two at least, and the huntsman came in for a 

 lot of blame behind his back. I was riding beside 

 him one day when the coverts were drawn blank, 

 and he remarked that he did not know where the 

 foxes could have got to, for that they were still 

 somewhere in the neighbourhood he was confident. 

 Indeed, it was evident from the hounds that such 



