19 DECEMBER 1952, Page 20

Against Vulpicide

SIR,—The Vulpicide who shot the dog fox as your correspondent describes and afterwards photographed his victim, an exploit of which few would have been proud, might have saved his losses by the simple expedient of shutting up his poultry in fox-proof shelters. Foxes have many sins charged upon them of which they are innocent. The master of one of the most famous packs in England once said that the only creatures for which he had not had compensations asked were bulls and carthorses, and the secretary of a West Country Poultry Fund deferred paying a claim for a calf until the fox came back for the cow so that both accounts could be settled together.—Yours