And what, pray tell, is the difference between hunting a fox and hunting a deer? Where we hunt, the deer depredation to the corn can mean the difference between our friends, the owners, making or losing money. True, we don't go out in scarlet jackets and ride jumpers. Normally we wear insulated coveralls, blaze orange vests and hats, heavy boots, and, if we ride at all, we ride "four wheelers" like these. (Usually we walk up and down those hills, but after nine heart bypasses and two minor heart attacks, we make an exception for my brother and others who have had similar troubles.)

I know some people out here in the West who ride horses to hunt. They ride to the campsite, trailing the packhorses and riding. The horses are picketed; the hunters may or may not ride to the hunting area -- those I know usually don't.

As for the prevelance of foxes and deer -- that, I suggest, is in Britain. In the US deer are numerous that some years ago the head of the Schuykill Nature Conservancy in Philadelphia called them "rats with antlers" and others in other places have expressed similar sentiments.

As for the movie "Bambi" -- I think that Walt Disney's credibility in nature films has been thoroughly established. I particularily like, in "Bambi", the statement that Bambi's mother was killed by hunters when, in the original book, she was killed by poachers.

My feelings about Fox Hunting are simple: unless the hunters are ready to chase the critter on foot, they shouldn't be allowed to chase it on horses. And they should have to get written permission to cross the property of someone else.