238 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



of the hunt and not from the Master. And even the secretary 

 was not much about the country during the summer, and the 

 " moves " were, as a matter of fact, decided on at the end 

 of a season, when the bigwigs of the hunt had come to the 

 conclusion that there was a shortage in one particular district 

 and too many foxes in another. And here I may point out 

 that hounds killed no more foxes in my early days than they 

 now do. In some districts, indeed, I know for a fact that the 

 number of kills has in recent years been far larger than it 

 was in the 'sixties and 'seventies. But I have a very strong 

 opinion — ^indeed, I am perfectly certain — that the increase in 

 kills is in some degree due to the fact that the fox breed is 

 nothing like so strong as it was when I began to hunt. There 

 were before the war more foxes all over the kingdom than 

 there were thirty or forty years before, and the best of them 

 were, no doubt, quite as good as the best of former genera- 

 tions; but there has been, and may still be, a leaven of weak 

 foxes, and in consequence a greater number are killed. On 

 this particular subject my mind is firmly made up, and I will 

 give my reasons for my belief. In the first place, epidemic 

 mange — as distinguished from the mange which was occasion- 

 ally found on a very old fox — was unheard of thirty yeaxs 

 ago, but has since then penetrated into nearly every country; 

 in the second place, shooting tenants and keepers, who were 

 quite reckless in their attitude towards hunting, had (before 

 the war) multiplied tenfold, and with their coming they intro- 

 duced the barbarous habit of taking up cubs in the spring, 

 keeping them in confinement all the summer, and putting 

 them down just before hounds came to draw their coverts. I 

 have seen in more than one country two or three couples of 

 such cubs mopped up by a pack of hounds in an hour or two, 

 and I must say that such a thing was impossible where I first 

 began to understand hunting, though in that particular 

 country cub-hunting was from a month to six weeks later 

 than it was farther south, and oft^en waa hardly begun before 

 October. 



Some years ago, during a long conversation with a veteran 

 ex-Master, who was following hounds on wheels, I asked why 

 .at the time I refer to the number of kills was so small com- 

 pared with what it had since been in the same country. The 



