Is Digging Every Fox Necessary?

From The Graphic, 1891:  "Digging Out a Fox"

From The Graphic, November 10, 1909:

THE PRACTICE OF DIGGING FOXES by Basil Tozer

Of late years there has been a growing tendency in a number of hunting countries to dig out foxes even when they have shown good sport.

In nearly all these countries the masters are men who, realising that they are hardly equal to the task of hunting hounds themselves, leave all practical work to the huntsman. And it being to the huntsman's interest to show at the close of the season as good a record as possible of foxes killed, he naturally has little hesitation in digging upon occasions when the majority of the field would, were their opinion asked, vote in favour of allowing a fox that has saved his brush by getting to ground at the end of a good run to live to run another day.

This question of digging is one that often gives rise to a good deal of controversy, not only because most hunting men detest to be kept waiting about while the tedious business of digging is in progress, but also because an increasing number of men and women who ride to hounds would like to see the practice altogether abandoned. Most emphatically is this the case in Ireland, where the feeling of all Irishmen who are keen about the sport is against the practice of digging, which, to use the common phrase, they don't consider "cricket," save on rare occasions. Indeed, the remarks the writer has heard made in more than one part of Ireland, concerning this question, have been far from flattering to some of our own hunts.

The man who knows nothing about hunting, labours, of course, under the impression that to dig a fox out under any circumstances is an unfair proceeding, and that to dig him out at the end of a good run must necessarily be the height of barbarity. There are, however, good reasons for occasionally digging, which some of us are inclined to over look. A mangy fox, for instance, ought to be killed by any means and under any circumstances, especially now that mange is so rampant in certain countries and that of recent years it has spread so rapidly. Then, it is an axiom that hounds must be blooded from time to time if they are to remain staunch, while if in some of our cramped countries where meadows are small and woodland is plentiful foxes were never dug, the hounds would seldom taste blood. Indeed a kill in the open in such districts, or, for that matter, a kill in cover, happens comparatively seldom. Lastly and this, perhaps, is the strongest plea of all in favour of digging. The farmers, to whose friendliness we are indebted for so much of the sport we get, are generally only too ready to complain if foxes are not killed, especially if hen-roosts have been robbed. And in this connection it is a curious coincidence that, nine times out of ten, when a fox starts upon a marauding expedition he selects the very finest birds the farmer whom he elects to rob has ever raised. The farmers will tell you that themselves. And they ought to know!

When that much has been said in favour of digging, however, there remains no further plea for the practice, and emphatically there can be no excuse for digging out two foxes on the last day of the season, and that before one o'clock in the day, a thing that occurred last season, to the openly expressed indignation of the field. Had that happened in Ireland, the Master who countenanced it would most likely have found a stigma attaching to his name to this day.

Then there is a custom that has crept in of late years in several hunting countries, which consists in bolting foxes with the help of fire squibs. Whether this is or is not playing the game is a matter of individual opinion, and the same may be said of several other practices in connection with the bolting of foxes, which have had a temporary vogue in various countries, but have eventually been abandoned.

The writer numbers among his personal acquaintance fourteen masters of hounds who are sportsmen of what we are pleased to call the old school though they are by no means old men, and one or two who are not. Some of the former have kindly expressed their opinion upon the subject now under notice, and it is significant that all but three are strongly opposed to digging, except when circumstances render it necessary. Digging is almost always overdone in countries where the huntsman is given his head," the veteran Master of a well-known pack remarked in answer to an inquiry, and he went on to name half a dozen countries where the Master is notorious for his anxiety to dig upon slight provocation. "Personally," he went on, "I am not in sympathy with such men. Sport means fair play, and there is nothing fair about digging a fox or letting hounds chop him when it can be avoided. In this country, during all the time I have been Master, I have not dug out, I suppose, more than a dozen foxes at most. And if you want to know what sport this pack has shown, also the feeling that exists among the farmers, any member of the hunt will tell you."

And yet the country referred to is one where there would be some excuse for digging frequently. Plentifully wooded, and well supplied with foxes, undulating and somewhat cramped, good hunting runs are there commoner than long, fast runs, except towards the end of the season when hounds hit the line of a travelling fox, which, in one particular district, they do with unusual frequency. During the first three months of the season, however, their kills are all too rare yet these hounds do not appear to grow less keen, and certainly the farmers seldom complain. More over, the poultry and damage fund is not an excessively large one. Perhaps the wonderful popularity of this M.F.H. may account for his farmers' friendship for foxes, in spite of raided hen-roosts.