EVERLASTING QUESTION 117 



notion of ' playing the game' to banish 

 the fox and close their coverts to the 

 hunt. Most will be influenced by their 

 desire to do the right thing by everybody, 

 some perhaps only by the fear of public 

 opinion, but the foxes will be safe enough, 

 so long as owners of coverts are taken 

 the right way. 



It is agreed then to set down the fox 

 as a necessity, of which, if shooting men 

 cannot make a virtue, yet much can be 

 done to mitigate the vice. Briefly we 

 may now consider the fox as a permanent 

 fixture on a pheasant shoot, his deeds and 

 misdeeds, and how the latter may be 

 reduced to their irreducible minimum. 



The benefits conferred by a fox on 

 a shooting will not take very long to 

 enumerate, yet they are not altogether 

 negligible. The fox destroys rats, stoats, 

 and weasels, and removes all sickly game 

 which might otherwise induce an outbreak 

 of disease among the healthy ; he also 

 stimulates activity among keepers and 

 watchers, while sometimes he saves them 



