FOXES AND THE EVERLASTING QUESTION 177 



the toll they take of partridges and pheasants not 

 altogether of necessity, but of habit. There can be 

 nothing more foolish on the part of hunting owners 

 of sporting rights than to keep down ground game, 

 rabbits especially, to an unnecessarily low extent. 

 They demand foxes, plenty of winged game, but 

 no rabbits. What happens ? Just at the time 

 when the vixens with weaned cubs would grate- 

 fully accept young rabbits, such delicacies are not 

 to be had for love or money. But there are plenty 

 of sitting pheasants, and a little later partridges as 

 well. I do not say a vixen would not take the 

 birds in any case, but being able to obtain rabbits 

 with reasonable ease, she would not make a speciality 

 of hunting for birds. The mischief does not end 

 with the vixen's attention to the birds. Her cubs 

 are brought up to look upon pheasants and partridges 

 as a sort of staff of life, much as children are taught 

 to regard bread-and-butter. Naturally the cubs 

 ever afterwards say to themselves when they see 

 or smell a bird : ' There is a meal : come, let us 

 catch it !' 



In this way are foxes educated to live on food 

 that is grudged them. The tendency of the times 

 is to force them to do so more and more. Foxes 

 or game must give way. A man who gave me to 

 understand that he knew the last thing about foxes 

 and their habits told me in all seriousness that he 

 could not understand what foxes now lived on. 



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