YOUR correspondent Pat Stokes-Smith wrote an appeal to Mr and Mrs Fox (Advertiser letters, December 3) and as this would appear to be addressed to us personally, perhaps we might be allowed to reply in the same twee anthropomorphic style.

We regret we shall not be moving in with our relatives in the town.

We have no desire to live an urban scavenging lifestyle, grubbing about in dustbins, catching mange and other diseases from our urban cousins and dodging traffic.

Instead, we will continue our good life in the country, relishing the occasional raid on a chicken run or pheasant pen. Of course, if successful we won’t just kill one or two birds to satisfy our hunger, but indulge in a killing frenzy and bite the heads off all of them.

But that’s our vulpine nature and so we really can’t blame the humans if they take their own natural counter-measures in the “countryside tradition” to control our depredations.

Personally, we’d rather be chased through the countr yside by hounds, with a chance of escape, and if caught a far less cruel fate than being shot, wired or poisoned to die a lingering death.

If Pat Stokes-Smith finds the prospect of all this too abhorrent, perhaps it is she rather than ourselves who should be considering a move to the town?