POULTRY DAMAGES 363 



ments are literally correct, he has certainly a griev- 

 ance, and that no small one. But though he puts 

 down his losses temperately enough, he does not 

 give quite all the information that is needed, and 

 the conclusion at which he arrives is certainly such 

 a one as no sensible and unprejudiced man could 

 countenance. To begin with, it is certainly a 

 heavy loss which the man has had, year after year, 

 and the question naturally arises did he take suffi- 

 cient care of his poultry in shutting them up. It 

 seems rather out of the common that so many 

 head should have been lost year after year. Foxes, 

 like other carnivora, hunt for their food by night, 

 and though they are very wanton in their mischief 

 when they once get amongst a lot of fowls, they 

 cannot get amongst a lot of fowls when they are shut 

 up. I know foxes will on occasion snap up a hen 

 or a duck in broad daylight. I have caught them 

 in the act, but anything like wholesale destruction 

 only takes place when he gets into a hen-house. 

 Foxes are occasionally credited with doing wonder- 

 ful things. I once lost some poultry — as a matter 

 of fact it was stolen — and the wise policeman whom 

 I interviewed on the subject informed me there 

 were three breeds of foxes in the neighbourhood. 

 When I pointed out to him that the staple of the 

 padlock which fastened the fowl-house was drawn, 

 and asked him whether a fox could do that, he was 

 puzzled. 



But to return. In most hunts — indeed, in 

 every hunt I know — there is a poultry fund, but 

 in some cases they are not too well administered, 

 and in the case of a man residing on the borders of 

 two hunts sometimes they are apt to overlook the 

 claims. I have known a man who lived on the 



