We have lately made such an earth in a small covert, because the original earth is the wrong side of the River Coln.  All the good country is on the opposite side of the river to that on which the old earth is situated.  Foxes will seldom cross the stream when they are first found.  It is hoped, therefore, that when they take to the new earth they will lie in the wood on the right side of the stream.  We shall then close the old earth, and thus endeavour to get the foxes to run the good country.  Much may be done to show sport by using a little strategy of this kind.  Many a good stretch of grass country is lost to the hunt because the earths are badly distributed.  It must be remembered that a fox when first found will usually go straight to his earth; finding that closed, he will make for the next earths he is in the habit of using.

The other day, while ferreting in the coverts previous to rabbit-shooting, the keeper bolted a huge fox out of one burrow and a cat out of the other.  He also tells me that he once found a hare and a fox lying in their forms, within three yards of one another, in a small disused quarry.  There is no doubt that, like jack among fish, the fox is friendly enough on some days, when his belly is full.  He then “makes up to” rabbits and other animals, with the intent of “turning on them” when they least expect it.  Without this treacherous sort of cunning, reynard would often have to go supperless to bed.

In those drains and earths where foxes are known to lie you will often see traces of rabbits.  These little conies are wonderfully confiding in the way they use a fox-earth.  It is difficult to believe that they live in the drain with the foxes, but they are exceedingly fond of making burrows with an entrance to an earth.  They are a great nuisance in spoiling earths by this practice.  Rabbits invariably establish themselves in fox-drains which have been temporarily deserted.

Foxes become very “cute” towards the end of the hunting season.  They can hear hounds running at a distance of four or five miles on windy days.  Knowing that the earths are stopped, they leave the bigger woods and hide themselves in out-of-the-way fields and hedgerows.  Last season a fox was seen to leave our coverts, trot along the high-road, and ensconce himself among some laurels near the manor house.  He was so easily seen where he lay in the shrubbery that a crowd of villagers stood watching him from the road.  He knew the hounds would not draw this place, as it is quite small and bare, so here he stayed until dusk; then, having assured himself that the hounds had gone home, he jumped up and trotted back to the woods again.