1 FEBRUARY 1935, Page 16

Bought Foxes In some country place an unreported battle is

being si'age not without heat, and perhaps I may be allowed to play ; the part of war correspondent. The habit is more or leSs established hi some districts—one within my cognizance . is in " little England " beyond Wales, the other near London —of buying and ‘enlarging foxeS. In the far West' the device has been &reed on Masters of Fexhouncli by the rabbit-trappers. Their abqminable toothed. traps, set in defiance of the law in the open, have wiped out the fOxes, and indeed the pheasants, and unless the hunt is to vanish completely foxes hid to be imported. Not so long ago I saw a stable full of the'm in the close neighbourhood of the kennels. What Proportion were likely to fall to the hounds I cannot estimate, but the rabbit-trappers who hate all vermin because they keep down the tale of rabbits are ruthless and very clever enemies of all creatures that interfere with their industry, if the word may be used. Most of these foxes are released in the open and, being strange to the place, are likely to be rather easy victims. Beckford, the king of writers on foxininting, used to say that bagged' foxes snick differently from wild foxes. Some country people in my district allege that imported foxes bark differently.