176 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



dared dine within sound of a horn, and all keepers 

 blew horns all night, even as men cannot live on 

 air alone, so cannot foxes live on the blast of a horn, 

 and so might just as well not exist. Perhaps those 

 who suggest the horn-blowing cure would volunteer 

 to help keepers to perform an all-night blast every 

 night, say, during June and July ; of course, in 

 addition to the usual day's work. Partridge-shooting, 

 if only because it is cheap, is bound to remain the 

 most popular form of shooting ; and since less can 

 be done to prevent, or to make good, the damage 

 by foxes to partridges than to other game, foxes 

 must give way to partridges. The Ground Game 

 Act really sounded the death-knell of foxes by doing 

 away with rabbits their more or less ungrudged 

 bread-and-butter ; and the present tendency to cut 

 up land into smaller and smaller holdings has kept 

 it tolling. The prospects of foxes grow blacker 

 apace. With regrettable frequency one hears that 

 masters of hounds are finding their countries un- 

 tenable owing to the scarcity of foxes and closed 

 coverts. 



Hares and rabbits now are scarce enough in 

 many districts, in which the time is not far distant 

 when there will be ten men, ten dogs, and ten guns 

 against each hare and rabbit, where before there 

 was only one trio of destruction. The decrease of 

 hares and rabbits not only makes scarcer the more 

 natural and least-grudged food of foxes, but increases 



