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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