COUNTRY LIFE
IT is perhaps a little dangerous at the height of the hunting season to write of the destruction of foxes by chemical methods or by trapping; but the following episode is of no little concern to naturalists in general. On the edge of a small town in a home county was an earth of unusual dimensions. It had some twenty openings within a space no bigger than a tennis-court. Poultry-keepers made loud complaints: they were losing; turkeys as well as geese, ducks and hens ; and it was presently proved that the foxes would travel four miles to their hunting grounds, for com- petition was keen. Destruction was decreed, and when at last the earth was dug open the full dietary of the foxes was analysed. They had in some measure atoned for their killing of poultry by killing almost exactly the same number of rats as well as many rabbits. The relics of their feasting disclosed one utterly unexpected and not easily explained item ; over one hundred rooks were in the list. The only plausible explanation is that, in obedience to the rather grim advice of the Ministry of Agricul- ture, rook-shooting had been general, and perhaps not very expert. Rooks are extremely numerous in the district. I have seen a stoat with a black- bird in its mouth. Is it possible for a fox to catch an unwounded rook ?
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