182 MR. osbaldeston's hounds. 



month of March ; some litters are produced as late as 

 the middle of April, but not often. In some instances, 

 cubs have been discovered in the depth of winter, though 

 such occurrences are rare. I recollect Mr. Osbaldes- 

 ton's hounds once killed a bitch fox in cub during the 

 month of December, in Northamptonshire. A good 

 nursery, as a feeder to the rest of the country, is a most 

 essential thing, and as some persons are not fond of 

 having their covers disturbed very late in the season, the 

 convenience and wishes of all large landed proprietors, 

 whose covers are extensive, and whose love for hunting 

 and its concomitants prompts them to preserve the 

 cubs, as well as the old foxes, ought on all occasions to 

 be considered. It is, I am sorry to observe, a cir- 

 cumstance of every day occurrence to hold out the 

 appearance of preserving, while not one litter of cubs 

 is ever permitted to remain, for fear that some old 

 one-legged hen pheasant should be kidnapped. This 

 is as illiberal as it is deceitful, for it is as totally 

 impossible for a pack of hounds to be taught their 

 work without plenty of cubs to enter them to, as it 

 would be for a lad to attempt to construe a play 

 of Sophocles without having first learnt the Greek 

 grammar. No animal was ever created in vain, and 

 if the good that foxes do was weighed against the 

 mischief of which they are very frequently and wrong- 

 fully accused, I am convinced that the former would 

 greatly preponderate in the scale of an impartial 

 judge. I was once taken by an earth-stopper to be 

 shown, as a convincing proof of the utility of these 

 animals, the remains of the prey belonging to a 

 litter of cubs in the neighbourhood where I was then 



