Since these things are so, it behoves all who wish
to follow hounds, harriers, or beagles to be more tactful than some of them are in such details as asking leave and in avoiding damage. The most thorough destruction of foxes I ever knew of—it happened last year—was the direct result of the hunt clashing directly with a shoot. In this present year at the very earliest cribbing day of the season a pack of young and untrained hounds themselves actually killed over a score of young pheasants in one covert. Such examples are fatal to the hunt ; but there is no essential need for the one sport to interfere with another. One sporting land- owner, though he never hunted, asked the hunt to draw his coverts the day before his big shoot solely in order to test the question whether or no they drove off the pheasants. He exceeded his usual bag and decided that they did no harm whatever. Personally I believe that a few foxes, which are great killers of rats, do a service to the gamekeeper ; and similarly that a few otters are an advantage in a trout stream. The best masters of foxhounds are extremely
punctilious ; but if the weaker brethren, whatever their quarry, do not imitate them, hunting will receive a very serious setback and indeed become impossible in certain districts. * * *
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