84 THE FOX 



once for the scarcity of foxes on a certain estate^ is 

 probably incorrect. There were foxes in the cliffs, 

 there were more in the coverts. This was no doubt 

 true. But the cliff foxes had always been there, and 

 the inland foxes had been shot or trapped by a 

 keeper of the kind who shoots foxes because he has 

 nothing else to fire at — for the scarcity of game was 

 as noteworthy as the absence of foxes. There was 

 not as much as if there had been no attempt at 

 preserving. A keeper can always have foxes if his 

 master really wishes, though it may be freely allowed 

 that they give him trouble. An efficient man will 

 always have them in his coverts. The keeper who 

 has none is either inefficient or dishonest, perhaps 

 both. Were I the owner of large coverts and there 

 was not a good head of game, and yet the coverts 

 were drawn blank when the hounds came, I should 

 feel that it was a case for a change of keepers. The 

 man to be dreaded in a hunting country is the dis- 

 honest, inefficient keeper, who is practising on the 

 weakness or ignorance of his master. 



The various excuses, such as the death of all 

 foxes through mange, the migration to cliffs or other 

 refuges, are, to speak plainly, simply untrue. But in 

 many of the best-managed shootings there is no 

 question of foxes. They are there, and, like the 



