From Fox's Earth 



with his arms on the fence, the owner had 

 watched the fox as, in broad daylight, it quartered 

 the field, or stalked the sitting bird against the 

 wind, or along the hedgerows. It was shrewdly 

 suspected of picking up the chicks tottering 

 among the green corn-stalks, and so decimating 

 the coveys for the wing. Even now, with the 

 vixen out on the forage, their calls come in from 

 all around. 



Yet it was a shooting county, second to none in 

 Scotland. On the fields and pastures round the 

 manor-house the first of September was a red- 

 letter day, as the twelfth of August on the hills. 

 To the stay-at-home squire of the old school it 

 had a charm all its own, a savour of the harvest, 

 a fulness of restful and idyllic traditions. He 

 walked across the young grass, and the heavy 

 whirr of wings was music to him. He glanced 

 at the turnips, less as food for the cattle than as 

 shelter through which he would wade, until his 

 two liver-coloured Irish spaniels stood to the 

 point. 



And here was wholesale slaughter condoned ; 

 against the increase of which no precautions were 

 taken. Inside were five cubs. For their growing 

 appetites this pile had been raised. It would be 

 added to at nightfall, when vixen and dog re- 

 turned with the spoils of the day, and through 

 the nights and mornings to come. Very simply 

 could the pangs of hunger have been allayed. 



