724 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



Some trappers say it will amputate the leg if need be. I have 

 never seen this, but I have known the Fox to bite ofif the im- 

 prisoned toes below the trap. This, whether design or accident, 

 is the best thing it can do, as it can then jerk free with the least 

 possible loss and pain. 



Many hunters and farmers in England have told me that 

 a Fox never kills near home. It has no wish for trouble with 

 the near neighbours. The barnyard next its den is perfectly 

 safe so far as this pair is concerned. I am not sure that this 

 is the case in Manitoba as yet. 



There is a device that I have several times known the 

 Ontario Fox to resort to when pressed by the hounds, that is, 

 run along the railway ahead of a train, and cross a high trestle 

 bridge. On one occasion I knew of a hound being thrown by 

 the locomotive from the trestle into the river below, minus his 

 tail, but otherwise unhurt. I was told, however, that all were 

 not so fortunate, as some hounds had been killed at the same 

 place in a similar way. It is very hard to say how much was 

 intentional on the part of the Fox. The fox-hunters who 

 know the animal, say it was intentional throughout. Some 

 maintain that it was entirely accidental. It certainly was not 

 necessary for the Fox to know anything about train times, as 

 he could hear the train coming miles away. The track is a 

 notoriously bad place for scent to lie, the trestle was a place 

 of difficult footing, like a sloping tree, which often furnishes 

 refuge, or the steep sand bank already noted, where I several 

 times saw the Fox baffle the hounds. He might run to the 

 train, just as I have known a Deer or Hare run to a wagon or 

 sleigh when flying for its life, preferring the unknown terror to 

 the certain death. Add to this the element of luck when first 

 the Fox made the attempt; success that time would lead him 

 to try again. 



I have several times been told by hunters, of Fox mothers 

 poisoning their captive cubs because they could not free them. 

 I am more sceptical now than I was formerly of these accounts, 

 not because, as some have illogically asserted, this would 

 postulate a knowledge of the nature of poison and of death on 



