Dear Madam - T’is the season to be jolly, as the song says, but not unfortunately for the fox. It always troubles me that this wild dog of the countryside gets such a raw deal at Christmas. Over the festive holiday, hunts will be out in force; gathering in village squares and other picturesque rustic settings to commence their helter skelter pursuit of an animal that they reckon provides them with worthy sport.

If only the fox saw it that way. For all we know maybe he does ...at the beginning of the chase. But not, I imagine, at the end of the hunt when the hounds close in for the kill. By then he is almost out of breath, panting and sweating, his lungs ready to give out, and his body on the point of exhaustion.

Still less will he be likely to enjoy the final moments of what to his tormenters may represent a sporting triumph but to him will be a chaotic frenzy of biting and howling as the skin is ripped from his bones by the pack. Even when I don’t see an actual hunt in action at this time of year, I do notice hunt scenes on hotel walls (murals or prints of old paintings), and on some Christmas cards and table mats. These display all the pomp and ceremony of the chase...the closely packed hounds wagging their tails, the mounted riders in their red or black jackets, little clouds of breath around their heads...horses, hounds, and humans milling about languidly against backdrops of winter skies and snow capped rustic dwellings. And I see paintings of hounds in full flight across visually stunning countryside.

I have no problem with these depictions, because that is where foxhunting belongs...in pictures of our colourful and murky past, as with other images of activities and events that have been consigned to the pages of history.

Yours faithfully, John Fitzgerald