Soon after Christmas the gamekeeper hears the barking of foxes at
night, and he well knows the reason. The foxes are searching for mates.
And here is one of many reasons why hounds in these days fail to find
foxes in woods never hitherto drawn blank. Hunting and shooting have
disturbed the quiet of the coverts, the underwood harvest is going
forward, the supply of fox-food is shorter than at any other time, and
is most hard to catch; so foxes generally have forsaken their haunts,
finding lodging in out-of-the-way places which offer some chance of
peace and quietness. Followers of hounds have much to learn about the
ways of the fox in January. They go from one blank covert to another,
cheerfully riding an intervening couple of miles, while all the time
the fox is lurking in a dell or a hedgerow only two hundred yards from
the first covert drawn. Yet a suggestion that the dell or the hedgerow
should be tried meets with silent scorn. This might be expected from
people who hunt to ride, or people new to the hunting-field; but
it does not become the experienced to pin all their faith to the
well-known coverts. In a southern county hounds have disturbed no fewer
than twelve foxes together--probably a collection of suitors for the
pad of one or two eligible vixens.
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