SIMON Hart, speaking on behalf of the Countryside Alliance, shares with us his delight at the RSPCA proposals to amend current legislation on cruelty to animals.

However, he then goes on to presume that hunting with dogs should be exempt from such legislation on the grounds that hunting is normal behaviour.

I would suggest that, as hunts annually train their young hounds to hunt young foxes during the cub hunting season, we are, in fact, seeing something very contrived.

In his book Fox Hunting, the late Duke of Beaufort, on describing hound training, says: "It is essential that hounds should have their blood up and learn to be savage with their fox before he is killed."

In his book, Foxhunting in Paradise, Michael Clayton draws our attention to the video taken by the League Against Cruel Sports of the Quorn Hunts' cub-hunting operations which allegedly shows terrier men pulling a fox from its hole and allowing it to run headlong into the pack of hounds, which then killed it.

I don't see too much in this kind of activity that I would describe as normal and will be more than delighted when legislation is passed that prohibits it.

PAMELA BOOKER,

Drakes Broughton.