Prairie Red-fox 723 



that their front door is now dangerously marked with the bones 

 and feathers of the victims. 



The young probably scatter voluntarily before winter, but 

 it is interesting to remember that in England a systematic effort, 

 called cub-hunting, is found necessary each year, in October, 

 to disperse the families and improve the hunting by equalizing 

 the distribution of Foxes. 



I have never seen the young accompanying their mother; 

 indeed, 2 Foxes are the most I have known together. 



The Eastern Fox seems to hold its own very well, wherever habits 

 there is rough country for final retreat. I suspect that there 

 are even more Foxes in New England and Ontario to-day than 

 in the early times, for the reason that food is more plentiful 

 in winter now, and at no time did the Fox prefer the deep 

 forest. I remember very well once in June, 1885, near Cobo- 

 conk, Ont., seeing a Fox trot out of the woods ahead of me for 

 fifty yards along the path, then disappear without knowing 

 I was near. I mentioned this at a camp I came to in the 

 evening. Two lumbermen were its total population, one had 

 been 16 years in the Muskoka woods, the other a little less, 

 but both said that they had never yet seen a live wild Fox in 

 the country. 



The world-famed cunning of the European Fox is due in men- 

 part, no doubt, to the ceaseless persecution it has suffered so 

 long. Yet our American Foxes are not unworthy of their 

 trans-Atlantic cousins. From birth they have a deep-laid fear 

 of every strange or peculiar object, and they early acquire a 

 horror of anything that bears the taint of man. Their mode 

 of life is, moreover, a constant sharpener of their wits. And the 

 quickness with which they learn to distinguish and distrust 

 the latest devices of the trappers, is wonderful evidence of 

 their cunning, perhaps also of their power to communicate 

 certain ideas. 



When caught by the foot a Fox will struggle violently, 

 twisting and tearing at the foot, sometimes till it is torn off. 



