tHOUGHTS UPON HUNTING. 



:>3 



37 



Vou should not encourage bldgers in your woods: they 

 inake strong earths, which will be expensive and trouble- 

 some to you, if you stop them 5 or fatal to your sport, if you 

 do not. You, without doubt, remember an old Oxford 

 toast : 



Hounds stout, and horses healthy^ 

 Earths well stopp'd, and foxes plenty. 



All, certainly, very desirable to a fox-hunter; yet, 1 appre- 

 hend the earlhs stopped to be the most necessary j for the 

 others, without that^ would be useless. Besides, I am not 

 certain that earths are the safest places for foxes to breed 

 in j for frequently, when poachers cannot dig them, they 

 will catch the young foxes in trenches dug at the mouth 

 of the hole, which I believe they call tunning them. A few 

 large earths near to your house, are certainly desirable, as 

 they will draw the foxes thither, and, after a long day, will 

 sometimes bring you home* 



If foxes should have been bred in an earth which you 

 think unsafe, you had better stink them out : that, or in^ 

 {^ztA any disturbance at the mouth of the hole, will make 

 the old one carry them oif to another place. 



