Red Pox 



The fox destroys numberless field mice and woodchucks for 

 the farmer, and in return the farmer supplys him with poultry, 

 and builds convenient bridges over streams and wet places, 

 which the fox crosses oftener than the farmer, for he is as 

 sensitive as a cat about getting his feet wet. 



On the whole, I am inclined to believe that the fox gets 

 the best part of the exchange, for, while the farmer shoots at 

 him on every occasion, and hunts him with dogs in the winter, 

 he has cleared the land of wolves and panthers, so that foxes 

 are probably safer than before any land was ploughed. 



When the snow is deep the farmer's sled makes the best of 

 paths for the fox, who appropriates them for his own use just 

 as unconcernedly as he does the regular highway. But to see 

 a fox get round the farmer's dogs, in order to make friends with 

 them, is one of the most astonishing revelations of character. 

 Usually the dogs seem hardly to know at first what to make 

 of his advances, but the fox is pretty certain to succeed in 

 bringing them to his side in the end, and after that they may 

 be seen playing together day after day. 



If, as I am sometimes tempted to believe, the fox really 

 works this scheme with the deliberate purpose of making it 

 safer for him to get at the farmer's chickens, he is gifted with 

 a degree of shrewdness beyond anything he has been credited 

 with. 



It is only recently that 1 have come to realize what per- 

 sistent woodchuck hunters foxes really are. 1 find that the 

 shrill alarm cry of the woodchuck, heard echoing back and 

 forth across the pasture-land, is a pretty reliable foretelling of 

 the approach of a fox. 



The appearance of a man or dog causes no such general 

 alarm among them. 



Last April, on a windy afternoon of bright sunlight, I saw 

 a big dog-fox hard at work digging out a woodchuck's hole 

 on the slope of a sandy hillock at the edge of a meadow. 



Every few minutes he would back out of the hole, and, 

 shaking the loose earth from his yellow fur, look intently 

 across to the other opening of the burrow, as if expecting at 

 any moment to see the woodchuck try to make his escape by 

 way of the back door. A little distance away a woodchuck 

 rwas signalling the dangers to any others of his kind that might 



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