{54a} Badger hunting, a more legitimate sport, is still carried on in a few rare instances. A friend of the writer, for several years, kept badger hounds in Gloucestershire, where these animals, are still fairly numerous, and the writer still possesses the skin of a badger killed by his hounds. A variety of hounds are used for this sport. There is the “smell dog” to track the quarry by his trail left in the previous night; the pack of more ordinary dogs to hunt him, and the plucky, smaller dog, who “draws” him from his retreat. It takes a good dog to beard the badger. {54b} “Nature Notes, vol. v., 1894, p. 98.” {55a} The late Mr. E. R. Alston, F.Z.S., Selbourne Magazine Vol. ii., p. 169. {55b} Mr. W. Cartmell. Ibidem. {55c} The Rev. E. Adrian Woodruffe-Peacock, F.L.S., F.G.S., secretary of the Lincolnshire Naturalists’ Union, has assured me, that, seeing a pike lying dead on the river bank, with the shoulder eaten away in the above manner, he has watched it for two days, but the otter never returned. And Mr. H. C. Hey, Derwent House, West Ayrton, York, mentions a similar case. (“The Naturalist,” 1895, p. 106). While a writer in _The Globe_ (April 30, 1896) says that he has seen half-a-dozen bream dead on a river bank, from not one of which has the otter taken more than this one bite. {55d} See again Nature Notes, quoted above. {56} To shew that the writer is not “speaking without book” in calling this neighbourhood a stronghold of Reynard in former years, it is sufficient to quote two or three of the entries in the accounts of the Parish Overseer of Woodhall, still preserved in the chest at Woodhall Church. £ s. d. “1806, March 30.—Needham’s boy for a 0 1 0 fox “1806, April 6.—Paid for foxes 0 16 3½ “1814, April 11.—Paid for foxes 1 12 2½” The slaughter of foxes, even in the 19th century, was thus remunerated at the rate of 1s. each; yet, in Woodhall, they would seem to have been so plentiful, that for such services, with other incidental expenses (such, probably, as traps, &c.), as much as £1 12s. 2½d. was paid in one year. Since those days, there has been a reaction in public sentiment. _Nous avons changé tout cela_, and instead of putting a price on Reynard’s _head_, we value his _brush_, and give him general protection. {57} This is confirmed by the late Sir John Astley, who states that, as a boy, he often gave wood-pigeons, rabbits, and rats to a litter of fox cubs, kept by their keeper within a wire fence, and they almost invariably preferred the rat.—“Fifty Years of My Life,” by Sir J. Astley. Vol. i., p. 245. {61} “Hinerarium,” vol. vi., p. 58, 1710. {62a} Part of the Glebe of Kirkby-on-Bain.