AFTER THE BATTLE 167 



lington found so useful for obtaining information in 

 the Peninsula ? 



We might go on asking these sort of questions 

 for any length of time, but let us instead look at 

 the matter from another point of view. 



Were there no hunting, there would certainly be 

 no foxes, and their last representatives would die 

 miserable deaths in traps and gins. It is hardly 

 likely that they would hesitate, if they had their 

 choice between certain extermination in a cruel way 

 on the one hand, and comparative protection during 

 most of the year, and a fair run for their lives once or 

 twice a month during the winter, on the other. Truly 

 there is, to us, the appalling sense of being hunted^ 

 but surely this, with its chance of getting away, is 

 better than waiting all night — perhaps two nights — 

 in a trap, the iron teeth of which are slowly eating 

 into one's leg, with the certainty of being knocked 

 on the head by a hairy ruffian with a bludgeon at 

 the end of it ! Would any sensible fox hesitate 

 which to choose } 



Again, we are told — but unfortunately we cannot 

 be sure — that it is second nature to a fox to be 

 pitted — with his staunchness, courage, and cunning 

 — against all comers. Some even say that he glories 

 in his victories ! Be this as it may, we do know 

 that he is a fighting animal, and that he dies fighting, 

 and dies game. 



Perhaps we had better turn over the page, for 

 the soldier, whose profession it is to encompass the 

 death and destruction of his country's enemies, must 



