74 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



furze-grown places on the South Downs. It is true 

 they are hunted in their season, else they would not be 

 in existence at all, but I do not think that more than 

 one fox in every six or eight born each year is killed 

 by the hounds. How they are kept within reasonable 

 limits I cannot say ; I can only say that some of them 

 do meet with a violent death, during the summer 

 months, in spite of the strong feeling in favour of their 

 preservation among the farmers. As a rule the farmer 

 declines to make any claim for lambs destroyed, and if 

 his wife sends in a claim for a dozen or twenty chickens 

 taken, she gets a sympathetic message, possibly a pair 

 of gloves, from the M.F.H., and there the matter ends. 

 Still, the red rascal does often meet with his deserts; 

 I have found foxes at midsummer, in fine condition 

 and with a splendid coat of hair, lying dead among the 

 furze, and could only say, " Careless fellow ! you have 

 gone and got yourself bitten by an adder, and there's 

 an end of you." 



In spite of hounds and " adders," the fox continues 

 only too numerous. In the course of one morning's 

 walk I have come upon four foxes in a furzy down, 

 aud where I saw four there must have been forty. 



The badger, too, still exists in some of the rough 

 furzy spots. At one place in the South Downs I 

 discovered an earth in the centre of a large clump 

 of old furze, mixed with elder bushes, growing on an 

 exceedingly steep slope, where a man could hardly 

 stand upright. In the middle of the clump there 



