70 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



he lives not far off ; he is specialized in a different 

 direction, and on account of this specialization, of his 

 nature, his genius, one would hardly suppose him 

 capable of a very close friendship with a human master. 

 Let me relate here the story of Peter the fox, for the 

 truth of which I vouch although I am not at liberty 

 to give the name and address of its owner. 



Peter's mistress is a lady living in a Shropshire 

 village, and the lady and fox are so much to one another 

 that they are not happy when apart. When she goes 

 for a walk or to make a call she takes the fox, just as 

 Mary took her little lamb, and she laughs at those 

 who say warningly that a fox makes a dangerous pet ; 

 that his temper is uncertain and his teeth sharp ; also 

 that he has an ineradicable weakness for certain things 

 — things with feathers, for example. Peter, she 

 affirms, never did and never will do anything he ought 

 not to do and is moreover the sweetest-tempered and 

 most affectionate pet that any person ever possessed. 



After having had Peter for about a year he vanished 

 and his loss was a great grief to her, and it was no 

 consolation to be told by her friends that it was just 

 what they had thought would happen, that sooner or 

 later the call of the wild would come and prove irre- 

 sistible. 



One afternoon, when Peter had been gone several 

 days, she remembered him and was heavy at heart and 

 it then first came into her mind to try an experiment. 

 If her fox still lived, she thought, where would he be 

 but in the wood a mile or so from the village ? There 



