of foil, foggage and especially foxes

i’ve always been enamored with the culture and tradition of fox hunting despite my moral aversion to animals spelled with the letter x. this is why my parents got me harry harewood’s (what a name!) charmingly illustrated a dictionary of sports (1835). perhaps there is no category more rife with f-wordery than field sports. consider: forestry, fishing, falconry, feaguing, ferreting, and of course fox hunting. here are a few more. 

far · an appellation given to any part of a horse’s right side
fencing · the nobelest branch of gymnastics
feræ naturæ · beasts and birds of a wild nature
foggage (in the forest law) · rank grass not eaten up in summer
foil · a hare when she runs the same ground she has run before is said to run the foil
forked tails · a name given to salmon in the fourth year of its growth
forms · applied to a hare when she squats in any place
fox · [here are highlights from the 6-page entry on foxes]

• the fox has a very significant eye, by which it expresses the passions of love, hatred, fear, &c.
• foxes near the sea-coast will eat crabs, shrimps, or shell-fish. in france and italy, they commit sad havoc in the vineyards by feeding on the grapes.
• crows, magpies, and other birds, who consider the fox as their common enemy, often by their tones of anger point out his retreat, and will even follow him with their screams to a considerable distance.
• the first year the fox is called a cub, the second a fox, and the third an old fox.
• when deprived of liberty, the fox pines, and actually dies of chagrin.