FUTURE OF FOX-HUNTING 337 



estates where foxes are scarce, holds that there is 

 no difficulty in having foxes and pheasants ; it is 

 only a little extra trouble in the nesting season, 

 and till the birds can roost. Indeed, he says that 

 really there is no extra trouble, for there are more 

 dangerous enemies to young pheasants than foxes. 

 An instance of this is given in the Field of 

 2 1 st November 1896. A gentleman who owns 

 six coverts of an average of five acres each, 

 reared in 1895 I ^° pheasants. Hounds were 

 allowed to draw the coverts when necessary, and 

 there was a litter of cubs in them. In the first 

 shoot 117 pheasants were killed ; in the second 

 1 1 were killed, hens being allowed to escape. 

 I fancy this is a better average of birds to 

 hand than falls to the lot of the man who pre- 

 serves extravagantly ; and with the pheasants 

 there were the foxes, for hounds drew the coverts 

 seven weeks in succession, and only once drew 

 them blank. 



There is another phase of the question which 

 game-preservers would do well to consider. Over- 

 preservation of game will not be allowed to 

 continue long. With farming in its present 

 depressed condition, the farmer is not likely to 

 put up with his land being overstocked with 

 game. A legitimate quantity of game he will be 

 glad to see, but 400 pheasants where 200 should 

 be will not unnaturally set up his back. And 

 it may be laid down as a certainty that if fox- 

 hunting goes down, game preserving will not 

 survive it long. 



But I do not expect to see fox-hunting die out. 

 As I have said, it will last my time and longer. 

 What I do expect to see is a better understanding 



z 



