G. HOOPER — BATS AND SOME OTHER BEASTS. 39 



timoly notice of tlicir hostile intentions. No, the fox is not, 

 properly speaking, a eunniiig animal, but lie is the boldest, wildest, 

 fleetest, and, excepting in his disregard of the tokens of danger, the 

 wisest of beasts. I half think that he is aware of the approach of 

 danger when he finds his earth stopped, but despises it. \yho ever 

 knew a fox to exhibit signs of fear ? VVTien unkennelled, with 

 20 couple of fleet hounds close at his brush, with 100 mounted 

 men, half of them yelling at the top of their voices, he is neither 

 frightened nor flurried. He does not, like the hare or the deer, 

 under similar circumstances, rush headlong away. He never loses 

 his presence of mind for a moment, but, althoiigh awakened out of 

 a deep slumber, he takes in the situation at a glance, and with a 

 whisk of his saucy tail, makes off at an easy but rapid gallop in the 

 direction of his nearest stronghold. If headed, as is frequently 

 the case, and forced to retrace his steps, he baffles his foes by 

 wonderful turns and doubles, creeping perhaps through the midst 

 of the pack, or crouching down, allowing the eager hounds to jump 

 over his back. Still, he will always return to, and, if possible, 

 "make his point;" his "plan of campaign" was formed the instant 

 that he became aware of his danger, and he adheres to it per- 

 sistently. 



Thanks to the strength and power of endurance with which they 

 are gifted, five out of six old foxes that are hunted escape, not 

 through cunning, the attribute of the timid hare, whose devices 

 to escape her pursuers are ten times more elaborate than those of 

 the fox, but by simple pluck, endurance, and sagacity. If you 

 eliminate the cubs, the lame, and the " chopped" foxes, not one in 

 six hunted foxes is fairly killed. I say "fairly," for to dig out a 

 fox and give him to the hounds is, to my mind, alike cruel and 

 unsportsmanlike. Sometimes, no doubt, poor Reynard succumbs to 

 his enemies. I have been in at the death of many a fox, and, 

 though I have done my best towards that end, I have always 

 regretted it. On such occasions I have never seen a sign of fear or 

 flurry, even when escape was apparently hopeless. Whatever the 

 odds against him, the fox is always prepared to take advantage of 

 any circumstance that may arise in his favour. I have seen one, 

 which, after a hard run, had taken refuge in a farm-yard, perhaps 

 well known to him in happier hours, the hounds all around him, slip 

 thi'ough them all, and, jumping to the top of a wall, and from 

 thence on to the backs of a flock of sheep, get clear away, the sheep, 

 as they rushed together, stopping the hounds. I rejoiced greatly m 

 the escape of that good fox. I have seen a hunted fox climb to the 

 roof of a high barn, and lie motionless along the ridge ; I have 

 known one seek refuge in a cottage clipboard ; but under no cir- 

 cumstances does the poor hunted beast lose heart or despair, and 

 if, overpowered by numbers, he succumbs, he dies like a hero, 

 fighting, struggling, biting to the last, but never uttering a ciy of 

 fear or pain. His coolness sometimes verges on impudence, and a 

 hunted fox has been known, during the run, to snatch up a fowl 

 and carry it away. 



