294? WANTON DESTRUCTION 



mean to taste it : and the hunting a bitch-fox 

 big with young, appears to me cruel and un- 

 natural. A gentleman of my acquaintance, who 

 killed most of his foxes at this season, was 

 humorously called midwife to the foxes. 



Are not the foxes'" heads, which are so pom- 

 pously exposed to view, often prejudicial to 

 sport in fox-hunting? How many foxes are 

 wantonly destroyed, without the least service to 

 the hounds or sport to the master, that the 

 huntsman may say he has killed so many brace ! 

 How many are digged out and killed, when 

 blood is not wanted, for no better reason ! — 

 foxes that, another day, perhaps, the earths 

 well stopped, might have run hours, and died 

 gallantly at last. I remember myself to have 

 seen a pack of hounds kill three in one day : 

 and though the last ran to ground, and the 

 hounds had killed two before, therefore could 

 not be supposed to be in want of blood, the 

 fox was digged out, and killed upon the earth. 

 However, it answered one purpose you would 

 little expect, — it put a clergyman present in 

 mind that he had a corpse to bury, which other- 

 wise had been forgotten. 



I should have less objection to the number of 

 foxes' heads that are to be seen against every 



