Thoughts on Cubbing
With September, cubbing begins—and the young of the thief of the world must justify their existence by making sport. Many sudden and bewildering shocks the cubs receive. Hitherto their lives have been peaceful enough. No wolf has found them out in the cornfields where they have been learning to hunt their own game; no wild dog has dug a way into the nursery earth. To be hunted is quite a new experience. The cubs are spared at least the dread of anticipation as in the early hours of a September morning they settle to sleep in their soft warm kennel, canopied by bracken and brambles. Dreaming, it may be, of their own night's sport, the cheerful voice of the huntsman, as he urges on his newly entered puppies to draw with their elders, means no more than a general alarm to the cubs' drowsy ears. Again and again the hunt may come, yet a cub may have no thought of a game, with life or death as the stake. Not until the attentions of the hounds become pressing and particular can he awake fully to what cub-hunting means. Then perhaps it is too late. But an old fox is quick enough to hear the first sound of the hunt; he breaks away at an unguarded corner, and is allowed to go.
There is little chance for the cub when, fat from long ease, he is pushed at last from the home-wood, with the pack in cry a few short chains behind his apology for a brush. A fox-hound, if often cowardly, is a foe of terribly unequal size and strength, one carefully fed, thoroughly schooled to hunting, and trained to great staying power. But a young hound is as indifferent to the business of hunting as is a cub when disturbed for the first time in its life. Lackadaisical is the word for the attitude of each. It is an unfortunate cub that slinks aside to avoid a too-inquisitive puppy and walks into the jaws of an old hound.
A cub is to be known from an old fox by its lankiness and legginess. Full growth is not attained until late November; from Christmas-time is the season when the amorous barking of the foxes of the year may be heard, as they run through the woods in the night, seeking their mates. In early autumn the cub's brush is lacking in bushiness, and is obviously pointed at the tip. By Christmas—if Christmas is to come for him—the brush will be in full-blown glory. A popular superstition among countrymen is that a white tip to a fox's brush denotes a dog-fox, while its absence is a sure sign of vixenhood. Another old fallacy that dies hard is that a fox will fascinate a roosting pheasant by gazing steadfastly into its eyes—hypnotising it so completely that the bird drops at last into the waiting jaws. But a fox's tricks need no bush. He will hoax rabbits by rolling as if in innocent frolic, rolling his way nearer and nearer until, with a perfectly calculated spring, he may make sure of his supper. And he will feign death so well as to deceive a wary old huntsman. Many a fox's body has been dug out of a hole and thrown aside as a carcass, only to come miraculously to life, and to fly at the first chance.
Wines of the Country
Country folk brew wine from numberless things—and the marvel is how they survive the drinking. Yet some of the simple wines are excellent—as parsnip wine and sloe gin. Beside all care in the making, the secret of parsnip wine is to brew it at the right time, which is just after fresh top growth begins in roots left in the ground, when the spine of the parsnips themselves turns as tough as wood. A good recipe from a keeper's note-book is this: Take three pounds of parsnips, a quarter of an ounce of hops, three pounds of lump sugar, and one gallon of water. Wash, clean, slice and boil the parsnips until tender. Add the hops, boil for five minutes, strain on to the sugar, and stir until the sugar dissolves. When the liquor is lukewarm add yeast, and when the working is done, barrel, bung, bottle and drink in due season.
We would give a word of warning to the inexperienced: Do not sample home-brewed wines too freely, however freely offered. Country folk put quantity before quality, and seldom offer their wines in anything but tumblers—and if you manage to empty one tumbler, you will need will-power, if not willingness, to avoid taking another glassful. To leave a drop of home-brewed wine, when once you have tasted it, is an insult to the maker. We remember how the wife of a keeper was unjustly blamed for the power of her rhubarb wine, of which a caller had partaken freely. He went his way smacking his lips; lighting his pipe, he strolled happily along a path of rabbit-mown turf, through a fine old park. But in a little while he felt a desire to lie down, and soon his groans were spreading panic among the park deer. He cursed the gamekeeper's wife and her rhubarb wine; but it turned out that he had borrowed from the keeper a little flowers of sulphur, which, escaping from its packet, had found a way into his pipe: hence his pain and sickness.