1 4 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



while a cub was only worth a shilling. Consequently the 

 entries which follow in succeeding years refer almost exclusively 

 to full-grown foxes. An analysis of the moneys expended by 

 the Greystoke churchwardens, upon the encouragement of 

 vulpicide, shows that the total number of Foxes paid for at 

 Greystoke, during the fifty years from Easter 1752 to Easter 

 1802, was ninety-one. This included eleven cubs and eighty 

 full-grown animals. The moneys expended upon their destruc- 

 tion during the half-century amounted to £13, 16s. 8d. 

 Twenty-four of these Foxes, including seven cubs, were paid 

 for between 1752 and 1762. Twenty-one heads were presented 

 in the next decade, including those of two cubs, which for some 

 unexplained reason were disallowed. The numbers killed in 

 the three decades which follow amounted to fifteen, eleven, and 

 twenty respectively. The price usually paid was a shilling for 

 a cub and three shillings and fourpence for an old fox. Thus : 

 < [1799] May 15, To Materdale people A fox head, f 0, 3s. 4d.' 

 Nor was the custom of paying for fox heads discontinued at the 

 end of the century. At Greystoke it only became obsolete in 

 1856. 'On entering this church,' says the Rev. T. Lees, 'on 

 Easter Day 1856, I was startled to find the door disfigured by 

 a grinning fox's head, and a chaplet of ravens' heads nailed up. 

 According to the ancient custom, 3s. 4d. for the cub's head, and 

 4d. each for the raven's heads, were demanded at the vestry the 

 following week.' 1 These charges were disallowed for the first 

 time, on the ground that the keepers who claimed the reward 

 were paid by their employer to kill vermin, and therefore 

 were not entitled to a subsidy from church rates. But though 

 instances of churchwardens continuing to pay head-money 

 for the Foxes of our fells in our own time are exceptional, 

 there can be no doubt either as to the serious losses which 

 these animals inflicted upon the flock-masters, or the real 

 necessity for keeping their numbers in check. About sixty 

 years ago, ' the shepherds and others, resident at Crosthwaite, 

 Watermillock, Patterdale, and Martindale, presented a hand- 

 some silver cup to John Taylor, Esq. of Baldhow, for his 

 indefatigable exertions in destroying foxes by his excellent pack 

 1 The Parish Church of St. Andrew, Greystoke, p. 13. 



