Illicit traffic in fox-cubs and partridge eggs is hard to stamp
out. So long as men will buy fox-cubs and eggs there will be men to
supply them. If there were no buyers there would be middlemen, and
there would be fewer cubs which bear the label, "From Germany." Cubs,
wherever they come from, fetch a good price, giving ample profit for
an hour's hard digging--say ten shillings each. Cub-snatching is less
risky than egg-stealing. So far as we know, even to kill cubs is not
an offence against the law, and so there can hardly be a penalty for
taking them alive. The worst that could happen to the culprit would
be a prosecution for simple trespass and damage. A cunning, rascally
cub-stealer of our acquaintance was employed by none other than the
local M.F.H. He was a shepherd, and nothing pleased him better than
to hear that foxes were plentiful when hounds came his way. He knew
that in the spring he would reap many pounds by cub-snatching, and
with small risk of rousing suspicion. But one spring morning he was
caught in the very act of cub-snatching, and then he ceased to be that
Master's shepherd.
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