FUTURE PROSPECTS. 29ri 



you will be able to accomplish j'our object. Of course, with large woodlands 

 well stocked with foxes, you will have no need to resort to any of these devices, 

 and may kill them whenever you get the chance. It is better to visit every litter 

 twice before the regular season commences, and do not scruple to exact heavy 

 toll if there are plenty of them ; but if you find only old foxes, leave at once, and 

 do not go there again until November. When foxes are too plentiful in a certain 

 district, and you wish to reduce their numbers, cub-hunting is the time to do it, 

 as later on you will find it impossible. Kill all the smallest foxes first, and 

 those that look like vixens. You only want one vixen in every covert, but after 

 the 1st of January you should be careful to see she is spared. All your best 

 runs will come from dog foxes, and if you can keep one vixen in a covert 

 she is certain to have plenty of visitors of the other sex. In order to have the 

 best sport, there ought to be one vixen in the country to every seven dogs, as 

 in that case the males wander about to different coverts, and will consequently 

 give you good runs. In mj'^ opinion, one of the chief causes of short-running 

 foxes is a preponderance of females over males. The white tag at the end ot 

 the brush is no guarantee of sex, and of course it is not easy to distinguish one 

 from the other ; but if you allow all the biggest cubs to go away unmolested, and 

 hunt the small ones that stop to the last, you will not be far wrong. The instinct 

 of the dog fox teaches him to go away at the sound of hounds, whilst that of the 

 vixen bids her stay at home. You may occasionally have some good gallops in 

 cub-hunting, and of course that is what your field will desire ; but you must 

 not study either your own inclinations or theirs. Your duty is, first of all, to 

 make the pack, and then to kill all the worst or weakest foxes. If, in pursuance 

 of these duties, a good run does fall to your lot, you will not enjoy it the less 

 because it was unexpected." 



Before concluding this imperfect record of the North 

 Stafford Hunt and its achievements in the past, the writer 

 may possibly be expected to say a word about its prospects 

 for the future. Of course, we all have to bear in mind the 

 old adagCj "Never prophesy unless you know;" but we 

 trust we shall not be held to contravene that counsel of 

 prudence, if we say that everything appears to us to point 

 to a long continuance of the success which has attended 

 the North Stafford pack for so many years of its past 

 history. 



No Hunt can flourish without general and hearty 

 support from all classes, more particularly from the 

 owners and occupiers of land in the district hunted, and 

 this support is never so ungrudgingly given as when 

 you find at the head of affairs, not only a thoroughly 

 popular Master, but a hard-working Hunt Committee, 

 who fully represent the different classes interested, and 

 an efficient secretary or secretaries. In the case of the 



