I AM country bred and born and familiar with the habits of most animals, particularly foxes.

A fox is a beautiful animal to look at and watch.

Our house at Spot Acre adjoined 16 acres of woodland which comprised large trees and very thick undergrowth.

One evening at dusk, I was bird/animal watching near the fox earths in the wood when I suddenly became aware of several very young fox cubs playing around my feet.

I stood completely still for about two minutes while the cubs frolicked around, then suddenly I saw the vixen at the entrance to their hole.

At some undetected signal, the cubs scampered off like lightening to their mother and down the hole. I went there several times later, but never saw them again.

But I would remind Mr Mullen that there is another side to its life.

My parents ran a smallholding and we kept quite a large stock of hens and ducks.

The procedure was to purchase 100-day-old chicks which, at this time, were nine pence each.

We would rear them until they were ready to go free range, and this was quite expensive. When the pullets were at the point of laying eggs, along comes our lovely-looking animal, the fox, and in one "foul" swoop – pardon the pun – kills the whole lot by biting their heads off.

This is not for food for her family, as she rarely takes any of the dead hens – she may take one, but leaves the rest to rot.

You will notice I said she. It is the vixen who does all the hunting and she always hunts alone.

You never see foxes in pairs.

It is not only poultry that suffers from the antics of this beautiful animal. Newly-born lambs often suffer the same fate and are left to rot.

You might ask, "What does the fox feed its family on?" The main diet is rabbits, moles, rats, mice and the occasional squirrel.

I now come to the hunt debate. My experience is that the huntsmen, with 16 couples of hounds, usually meet at 11am (if cub hunting, somewhat earlier).

More often than not, the hounds are back in their kennels by 4pm.

So there is no chance of a fox being chased for four hours, as Mr Mullen says.

Fox hunting takes place mainly during the winter months, in any case, and darkness soon descends.

More often than not, if a fox is "put up" by the hounds, within a very short period – 15 to 20 minutes – that fox has gone to earth.

A fox hole is some 15 to 20 yards (14 to 18m) long and completely safe from predators, so the hounds are immediately called off when the fox has gone to earth.

If a fox does "break free" into the open fields, the fox will easily outpace the hounds.

The fox can negotiate fences and gates much easier than a hound and never looks tired.

There is another interesting point. If a single hound is confronted by a fox, the hound will not attack the fox. I saw an example of this when following the hunt on foot. A fox came through the fence and crossed the footpath right under the nose of a hound. The hound did not want to know; he just ambled off in the opposite direction.

To conclude, as far as country people are concerned, foxes are vermin and should be exterminated, either by shooting, hunting, poisoning or being caged up and put in a zoo for those that love them to behold.

Yes, Mr Mullen, fox hunting is classed as a sport.

But I can assure you very few foxes are killed by the hunt – and being ripped to pieces by a pack of hounds is the quickest and least painful death.

One can shoot a fox but not necessarily kill it; the fox could lie there mortally wounded and in great pain for ages.

If poisoned, it can lie there in agony dying a slow, painful death.

Fox hunting should be reinstated as soon as possible to curb their numbers.

It is a better way than shooting or poisoning, which is, I suspect, what is going on today.