LETTER XXIII
I told you, I believe, at the beginning of our correspondence, that I disliked bag-foxes: I shall now tell you what my objections to them are:—the scent of them is different from that of other foxes: it is too good, and makes hounds idle; besides, in the manner in which they generally are turned out, it makes hounds very wild: they seldom fail to know what you are going about before you begin; and, if often used to hunt bag-foxes, will become riotous enough to run any thing. A fox that has been confined long in a small place, and carried out afterwards in a sack, many miles perhaps, his own ordure hanging about him, must needs stink extravagantly. You are also to add to this account, that he most probably is weakened for want of his natural food and usual exercise; his spirit broken by despair, and his limbs stiffened by confinement: he then is turned out in open ground, without any point to go to. He runs down the wind, it is true; but he is so much at a loss all the while, that he loses a deal of time, in not knowing what to do; while the hounds, who have no occasion to hunt, pursue as closely as if they were tied to him. I remember once to have hunted a bag-fox with a gentleman, who, not thinking these advantages enough, poured a whole bottle of aniseed on the fox’s back. I cannot say that I could have hunted the fox, but I assure you I could very easily have hunted the aniseed. Is it to be expected, that the same hounds will have patience to hunt a cold scent the next day o’er greasy fallows, through flocks of sheep, or on stony roads? However capable they may be of doing it, I should much doubt their giving themselves the trouble. If notwithstanding these objections, you still choose to turn one out, turn him into a small cover; give him what time you judge necessary, and lay on your hounds as quietly as you can; and, if it be possible, let them think they find him. If you turn out a fox for blood, I should, in that case, prefer the turning him into a large cover, first drawing it well, to prevent a change. The hounds should then find him themselves; and the sooner he is killed the better. Fifteen or twenty minutes is as long as I should ever wish a bag-fox to run, that is designed for blood: the hounds should then go home.
Bag-foxes always run down the wind: such sportsmen, therefore, as choose to turn them out, may at the same time choose what country they shall run. Foxes that are found, do not follow this rule invariably. Strong earths, and large covers, are great inducements; and it is no inconsiderable wind that will keep foxes from them. A gentleman who never hunts, being on a visit to a friend of his in the country, who hunts a great deal, heard him talk frequently of bag-foxes: as he was unwilling to betray his ignorance, his discretion and curiosity kept him for some time in suspense, till at last he could not refrain from asking, What kind of an animal a bag-fox was? and, If it was not a species of fox peculiar to that country?
A pack of hounds having run a fox to a ground immediately after they had found him, he was digged and turned out again; and, that the operation of turning him out might be better performed, the master of the hounds undertook it himself. You will hardly believe me when I tell you, that he forgot the place where he turned him out, and they never once could hit upon the scent.
If you breed up cubs, you will find a fox-court necessary: they should be kept there till they are large enough to care of themselves. It ought to be open at the top, and walled in. I need not tell you, that it must be every way well secured, and particularly the floor of it, which must be either bricked or paved. A few boards fitted to the corners will also be of use, to shelter and to hide them. Foxes ought to be kept very clean, and have plenty of fresh water:1 birds and rabbits are their best food: horse-flesh might give them the mange; for they are subject to this disorder. I remember a remarkable instance of it:—Going out to course, I met the whipper-in returning from exercising his horses, and asked him, If he had found any hares? No, Sir, he replied; but I have caught a fox: I saw him sunning himself under a hedge, and, finding he could not run, I drove him up into a corner, got off my horse, and took him up; but he is since dead. I found him at the place he directed me to, and he was indeed a curiosity: he had not a single hair on his brush, and very few on his body.2
I have kept foxes too long; I also have turned them out too young. The safest way, I believe, will be to avoid either extreme. When cubs are bred in an earth near you, if you add two or three to the number, it is not improbable that the old fox will take care of them. Of this you may be certain, that if they live they will be good foxes; for the others will show them the country. Those which you turn into an earth, should be regularly fed: if they should be once neglected, it is probable they will forsake the place, wander away, and die through want of food. When the cubs leave the earth (which they may soon do), your game-keeper should throw food for them, in parts of the cover where it may be most easy for them to find it; and, when he knows their haunt, he should continue to feed them there. Nothing destroys so much the breed of foxes as buying them3 to turn out, unless care be taken of them afterwards.
Your country being extensive, probably it may not be all equally good: it may be worth your while, therefore, to remove some of the cubs from one part of it into the other: it is what I frequently do myself, and find it answer.4 A fox-court is of great use: it should be airy, or I cannot advise you to keep them long in it. I turned out one year ten brace of cubs; most of which, by being kept till they were tainted before they were turned out, were found dead in the covers, with scarcely any hair upon them; whilst a brace which had effected their escape, by making a hole in the sack in which they were brought, lived, and showed excellent sport. Should the cubs be large, you may turn them out immediately:—a large earth will be best for that purpose; where they ought to be regularly fed with rabbit’s, bird’s, or sheep’s henges, whichever you can most conveniently get. I believe when a fox is once tainted he never recovers. The weather being remarkably hot, those which I kept in my fox-court (and it at that time was a very close one) all died, one after the other, of the same disorder.
Where rabbits are plentiful, Nature will soon teach your cubs how to catch the young ones; and, till that period of abundance arrives, it may be necessary to provide food for them.5 Where game is scarce, wet weather will be most favourable to them: they can then live on beetles, chaffers, worms, &c., which they will find great plenty of. I think the morning is the best time to turn them out: if turned out in the evening, they will be likely to ramble; but if turned out early, and fed on the earth, there is little doubt of their remaining there.6 I also recommend to you, to turn them into large covers and strong earths:—out of small earths they are more liable to be stolen; and from small covers are more likely to stray. Your game-keepers, at this season of the year, having little to do, may feed, and take care of them. When you stop any of these earths, remember to have them opened again, as (I have reason to think) I lost some young foxes one year by not doing it. For your own satisfaction, put a private mark on every fox which you turn out, that you may know him again. Your cubs, though they may get off from the covers where they were bred, when hunted will seldom fail to return to them.
Gentlemen who buy foxes do great injury to fox-hunting; for they encourage the robbing of neighbouring hunts: in which case, without doubt, the receiver is as bad as the thief. It is the interest of every fox-hunter to be cautious how he behaves in this particular. Indeed, I believe most gentlemen are; and it may be easy to retaliate on such as are not. I am told, that in some hunts it is the constant employment of one person to watch the earths at the breeding time, to prevent the cubs from being stolen. Furze-covers cannot be too much encouraged, for that reason; for there they are safe. They have also other advantages attending them: they are certain places to find in: foxes cannot break from them unseen; nor are you so liable to change as in other covers.7
Acquainted as I am with your sentiments, it would be needless to desire you to be cautious how you buy foxes. The price that some men pay for them, might well encourage the robbing of every hunt in the kingdom, their own not excepted. But you despise the soi-disant gentleman who receives them, more than the poor thief who takes them. Some gentlemen ask no questions, and flatter themselves they have found out that convenient mezzo termino for the easy accommodation of their consciences.
With respect to the digging of foxes that you run to ground—what I myself have observed in that business, I will endeavour to recollect. My people usually, I think, follow the hole, except when the earth is large, and the terriers have fixed the fox in an angle of it; for they then find it a more expeditious method to sink a pit as near to him as they can. You should always keep a terrier in at the fox; for, if you do not, he not only may move, but also, in loose ground, may dig himself further in. In digging, you should keep room enough; and care should be taken not to throw the earth where you may have to move it again. In following the hole, the surest way not to lose it is to keep below it. When your hounds are in want of blood, stop all the holes, lest the fox should bolt out unseen. It causes no small confusion when this happens: the hounds are dispersed about, and asleep in different places; the horses are often at a considerable distance; and many a fox, by taking advantage of the moment, has saved his life.
If hounds want blood, and have had a long run, it is the best way, without doubt, to kill the fox upon the earth; but, if they have not run long; if it be easy to dig out the fox, and the cover be such a one as they are not likely to change in—it is better for the hounds to turn him out upon the earth, and let them work for him. It is the blood that will do them most good, and may be serviceable to the hounds, to the horses, and to yourself. Digging a fox is cold work, and may require a gallop afterwards, to warm you all again. Before you do this, if there be any other earths in the cover, they should be stopped, lest the fox should go to ground again.
Let your huntsman try all around, and let him be perfectly satisfied that the fox is not gone on, before you try an earth:8 for want of this precaution, I dug three hours to a terrier, that lay all the time at a rabbit. There was another circumstance, which I am not likely to forget—“that I had twenty miles to ride home afterwards.” A fox sometimes runs over an earth, and does not go into it: he sometimes goes in, and does not stay: he may find it too hot, or may not like the company that he meets with there. I make no doubt that he has good reasons for everything he does, though we are not always acquainted with them.
Huntsmen, when they get near the fox, will sometimes put a hound in to draw him. This is, however, a cruel operation, and seldom answers any other purpose than to occasion the dog a bad bite, the fox’s head generally being towards him; besides, a few minutes’ digging will render it unnecessary. If you let the fox first seize your whip, the hound will draw him more readily.9
You should not encourage badgers in your woods: they make strong earths, which will be expensive and troublesome to you, if you stop them; or fatal to your sport, if you do not. You, without doubt, remember an old Oxford toast:
| Hounds stout, and horses healthy, |
| Earths well stopp’d, and foxes plenty. |
All, certainly, very desirable to a fox-hunter; yet, I apprehend the earths stopped to be the most necessary; for the others, without that, would be useless. Besides, I am not certain that earths are the safest places for foxes to breed in; for frequently, when poachers cannot dig them, they will catch the young foxes in trenches dug at the mouth of the hole, which I believe they call tunning them. A few large earths near to your house, are certainly desirable, as they will draw the foxes thither, and, after a long day, will sometimes bring you home.
If foxes should have been bred in an earth which you think unsafe, you had better stink them out: that, or indeed any disturbance at the mouth of the hole, will make the old one carry them off to another place.
In open countries, foxes, when they are much disturbed, will lie at earth. If you have difficulty in finding, stinking the earths will sometimes produce them again. The method which I use to stink an earth, is as follows:—Three pounds of sulphur and one pound of asafœtida are boiled up together: matches are then made of brown paper, and lighted in the holes, which are afterwards stopped very close. Earths that are not used by badgers, may be stopped early, which will answer the same purpose; but, where badgers frequent, it would be useless; for they would open them again.
Badgers may be caught alive in sacks placed at the mouth of the hole: setting traps for them would be dangerous, as you might catch your foxes also: they may be caught by stinking them out of a great earth, and afterwards following them to a smaller one, and digging them.
Your country requires a good terrier. I should prefer the black or white terrier: some there are so like a fox, that awkward people frequently mistake one for the other. If you like terriers to run with your pack, large ones, at times, are useful; but in an earth they do little good, as they cannot always get up to a fox. You had better not enter a young terrier at a badger. Young terriers have not the art of shifting like old ones; and, should they be good for any thing, most probably will go up boldly to him at once, and get themselves most terribly bitten: for this reason, you should enter them at young foxes when you can. Before I quit this subject I must mention an extraordinary instance of sagacity in a bitch-fox that was digged out of an earth, with four young ones, and brought in a sack upwards of twenty miles to a gentleman in my neighbourhood, to be turned out the next day before his hounds. This fox, weak as she must have been, ran in a straight line back again to her own country, crossed two rivers, and was at last killed near to the earth out of which she had been digged the day before. Foxes that are bred in cliffs near the sea, seldom are known to ramble any great distance from them: and sportsmen, who know the country where this fox was turned out, will tell you, that there is not the least reason to think that she could have had any knowledge of it.
Besides the digging of foxes (by which method many young ones are taken, and old ones destroyed), traps, &c., too often are fatal to them:—farmers for their lambs (which, by the bye, few foxes ever kill); gentlemen for their game; and old women for their poultry—are their inveterate enemies. I must, however, give an instance of civility that I once met with from a farmer:—The hounds had found, and were running hard: the farmer came up in high spirits, and said, “I hope, Sir, you will kill him: he has done me much damage lately: he carried away all my ducks last week. I would not gin him though—too good a sportsman for that.” So much for the honest farmer.
In the country where I live, most of the gentlemen are sportsmen; and even those who are not, show every kind of attention to those who are. I am sorry that it is otherwise with you; and that your old gouty neighbour should destroy your foxes, I must own, concerns me. I know some gentlemen, who, when a neighbour had destroyed all their foxes, and thereby prevented them from pursuing a favourite amusement, loaded a cart with spaniels, and went all together and destroyed his pheasants. I think they might have called this very properly, lex talionis; and it had the desired effect; for, as the gentleman did not think it prudent to fight them all, he took the wiser method—he made peace with them:—he gave an order, that no more foxes should be destroyed; and they never afterwards killed any of his pheasants.
