Practical Game-Preserving. 39 2 



usually follows the efforts made. There are, however, at 

 times foxes which there would appear to be no means of 

 circumventing. They generally turn out to be vixens, and 

 the mischief they accomplish is usually done at clicketing- 

 or cubbing-time, and when the cubs are reaching to be 

 about half-grown. 



The damage which foxes chiefly commit upon the 

 ordinary preserve is at hatching-time of both pheasants 

 and partridges and subsequently. They will also visit the 

 rearing-fields at times, and seek entry into breeding-pens. 

 Leverets much more than old hares fall victims to them, 

 and rabbits in every stage of growth. In my opinion, a 

 reasonable plenitude of rabbits upon every part of a 

 preserve is one of the best safeguards for the birds against 

 foxes. I do not say that it is the case upon every preserve, 

 but it certainly is upon most of them. Nor is it the case 

 when the rabbits are restricted to the coverts, and killed 

 and kept down in field and hedgerow. The average fox, 

 which by force of circumstances is compelled to lie in 

 hiding by day, either in earth or couched in a lair, kills 

 at night to satisfy hunger and not to gratify the lust of 

 killing. So long as there are the coming and going of 

 keepers and others in and around the preserve, so will 

 the foxes be as stated. It is in the woods and plantations 

 which are left almost entirely undisturbed, and where the 

 unhunted or rarely hunted fox harbours, that most damage 

 accrues from its maraudings and killings, prompted 

 otherwise than by mere hunger. 



Birds at nesting-time and immediately preceding are 

 protected largely by Nature by the loss of their natural 

 scent. Partridges, pheasants, grouse, &c., it is all one. 

 Just before they brood, and during the period of brooding, 

 the odour they throw off is foreign to the fox, and unless 

 he actually views the sitting bird she is practically immune 



