FUTURE OF FOX-HUNTING 335 



mistake he makes is that he takes a tendency for an 

 accomplished fact, and though I hold the opinion 

 that fox-hunting was never stronger than it is at 

 present, I cannot get away from the fact that a 

 danger to fox-hunting exists in many places. But 

 it is a danger which, if tackled in the right way, 

 can easily be surmounted. Similar danger has 

 beset the noble sport in times gone by, and it has 

 been overcome. 



I take it that no one — save a few ill-conditioned 

 brutes and some faddists, who think to crush the 

 sporting instincts which are the survival of centuries 

 with a little vulgar invective and false logic — 

 no one wishes to have fox-hunting done away 

 with altogether. Men may have ideas as to how 

 many foxes they ought to have on their estates ; 

 if they be shooting men they may think they 

 can have that number, and there will be no 

 harm done, but I cannot think that there is any 

 man aspiring to the name of gentleman who 

 allows hounds to draw his coverts, and yet who 

 does all in his power to destroy foxes, and to 

 spoil the sport of the men he calls his friends. 

 Yet, notwithstanding this, there is no getting away 

 from the fact that there is a scarcity of foxes which 

 should not exist, and that this scarcity of foxes is 

 in the main due to the over-preservation of game. 



In many countries in which I have hunted — 

 countries admirably adapted for foxes, and where 

 foxes should have been running about in all direc- 

 tions in the cub-hunting season — there was a 

 marked scarcity, and on more than one opening 

 day hounds drew covert after covert without there 

 being the sign of a fox. A continuance of this — 

 "ill-luck" shall I call it? — can only have one 



