* * * * Pox-HUNTERS AND GAME PRESERVERS.
In two parts of England with which I am familiar the usual feud between the game-keeper and the fox-hunter has taken on a certain extra vehemence. It has reached its pitch just as the hunting season begins with November. Foxes are plentiful in almost all counties, and much too plentiful in some parishes. But a good many have been shot where foxes have never been shot before. The unpardonable sin has been committed. More than this, confession has been openly made. One game-keeper in Wiltshire told me all the details of a particular crime of his own ; but made amends (as it seemed to me) by his explanation. His view of foxes was that they might often coexist along with partridges, and to a less degree with pheasants, without undue hardship to the game preserver ; but that now and again a fox was bred which acquired a particular and peculiar taste for the eggs of sittingpartridges. It was a more or less morbid taste, for it diverted the fox from his more normal pursuit of a mixed diet, including rats. Such a morbid fox might—so the keeper held—virtually destroy the partridges over a wide region. He spent his time hunting for them ; and protection of the nests rather attracted attention than saved the clutch. A large amount of corroborative detail was added in the usual manner. Every watched and guarded nest had been taken.
Previous page
