126 BRITISH MAMMALS 



the swans have been exterminated by foxes. With its rapacious 

 instincts, the fox does a great deal of damage, not only amongst 

 domestic birds and beasts which are the property of man, but 

 amongst the wild creatures of the wood and the lake. Artificially 

 protected as it has been since its pursuit on horseback became a 

 favourite and well-established sport some two hundred years ago, 

 the fox is no doubt answerable for a decided thinning of our 

 indigenous birds and beasts. 



During the rule of the Plantagenets foxes are mentioned, but 

 somewhat contemptuously, as beasts of venery. Early engravings 

 seem to indicate that the fox was pursued to his earth by a single 

 hound followed by sportsmen on foot, who then proceeded to 

 dig him out. It is probable that regular foxhounds, of French 

 or Spanish ^ origin, were not kept in England till the latter half 

 of the seventeenth century. About the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century it became customary to follow the hounds 

 on horseback. Hitherto mounted men had chiefly devoted 

 themselves to the pursuit of deer. Fox-hunting at the end of 

 the eighteenth century meant striking a fox's "drag," or scent, 

 early in the morning, and following this drag till the hounds 

 traced it to the kennel or earth to which the fox had retreated. 

 In modern fox-hunting a man is sent to stop up all the " earths," 

 or foxes' burrows, in the district over which hunting is to take 

 place. To do this successfully he must commence operations 

 soon after midnight, that is to say, after the foxes have left their 

 holes to forage for food, and he must complete his work before 

 the approach of morning, before they are back again in their 

 burrows. Should he be too late at any particular earth he may 

 stop the fox inside and completely spoil sport. 



Supposing these directions to have been efficiently taken, one 

 or more of the foxes in the district will have found himself shut 



1 This refers to the class of hound that would not only pursue, but, if 

 necessary, grapple with and kill the fox. Much earlier in English history the 

 dogs which tracked foxes to their burrows may have been of a smaller breed, 

 and perhaps more of the terrier class. These, in fact, were known as- 

 "fox dogs." 



