THE THIEF OF THE WORLD 149 



Gamekeepers, we know, have little love for foxes 

 for the sufficient reason that they are at one with 



foxes in their love of pheasants. Keepers 

 The Thief have also some of that craftiness and worldly 

 World wisdom so developed in foxes ; they know 



it is not always policy to say with their 

 lips what they believe in their hearts. There are 

 good people who tell keepers every now and again 

 that foxes do no harm to game. Keepers have 

 heard stories in favour of foxes ; they know the rights 

 of them. Dark and mysterious are the ways of the 

 fox ; but darker still and more mysterious are the 

 ways of the keeper with " the thief of the world." 

 This alone he will admit in favour of the fox : he adds 

 to the keeper's work an uncertainty which makes 

 success the sweeter. The fox is a favourite of For- 

 tune, his needs are fulfilled exactly ; all things seem 

 arranged in his favour to a nicety. Other creatures 

 may die of starvation in time of snow ; but the fox 

 then finds his prey with greatest ease. Cubs are 

 weaned about the middle of May, and must be fed 

 on flesh, when a majority of pheasants are sitting. 

 And when a sitting pheasant is scented or seen by a 

 vixen in search of food for her cubs, that pheasant, 

 you may say, is dead. The keeper, though his blood 

 boils afresh at each nesting tragedy at the sight 

 of the strewn feathers of the hen pheasant and at the 

 cold touch of the lifeless eggs appreciates the deft- 

 ness of the marauder's work. He reconstructs each 

 scene of the plundering the silent passage of the 



