A Proud Hunt
The bagged fox has always been both a jest and a byword ; but the modern methods are in places much more wholesale than they used to be and the association with the rabbit- trappers gives an unpleasant savour. There are two methods. One is to build an artificial earth, generally in the form of a " stick-heap " that is a pile of faggots or brushwood heaped over hollow trees or buried drain piles of generous dimensions. The other, which is said to be favoured by the trappers, whose methods are not always displeasing to the hunt, is to turn a fox out of a bag just before the arrival of the hounds. Some Masters and huntsmen who have a hearty dislike of the bagged fox maintain that the best hounds will not follow a tame fox. Persuasive examples are given, and if this is so, the discrimination of the nose of the real hound must be even nicer than we have supposed. In any case the point is minor, though interesting. What matters is that the destructive methods of the trappers are concealed by this traffic in tame foxes ; that an animal, often unable to live far from a poultry yard, is let loose on the neighbourhood, and "the sport of kings" is slurred and eventually spoilt.
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