SOURCE: "The Thrill of the Chase," in Books, No. 8, November, 1987, pp. 19-20.

In the review below, Parker praises In the Pink as a well-written and impartial account of fox hunting in England.

As someone who was taken hunting as a child, I have always considered blood-sports more deserving of the attentions of the NSPCC than of the RSPCA. Not that my mother bullied me into it, but I was the hunting equivalent of the coward who would rather go to war than declare pacifism. I confess I had no moral objection to the hunt; I did not even think about our quarry. But if I had I would have reflected that Reynard epitomises by tooth and claw the true colour of nature. Anyone who has seen what a fox can do to a run of chickens, or indeed an enfeebled sheep, must waver in his wholehearted sympathy for...