144 MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 



limb in pursuit of prey, but ascending quite tall and limbless trunks by a 

 regular clawing and hugging process, literally " shinning it." They have been 

 surprised in the top of a tree, curled ap in the abandoned nest of a hawk. 

 To escape the hounds it sometimes leaps on a reclining tree trunk, runs along 

 some of the more distant branches and leaps as far as it can away from the 

 point of attack to break the scent, or it will hide in the forks of a big tree so 

 deftly as to sometimes nearly escape observation. 



The food of both species of eastern fox forms an important consideration 

 in their relations to man. The concurrent opinion of nine-tenths of the 

 farmers and sportsmen of Pa. who contributed to Dr. Warren's economic re- 

 port on these animals heartily condemn both species as vermin in the worst 

 sense. With this opinion I fully concur. The only argument brought up in 

 their favor is their destruction of mice, moles and insects. As I have pre- 

 viously pointed out in treating the MuridcB and as I shall explain later in re- 

 gard to the Insectivora, the destruction of mice and moles is not necessarily 

 a benefit to man, the majority of the former not being proved to be noxious, 

 especially the woodland species which foxes principally devour. Owing to 

 their subterranean habits, the pine mouse, a truly noxious rodent, is rarely 

 captured, the wood vole {Evotomys), meadow vole {Microtus) and deer 

 mouse {Perojnyscus) being the species forming the bulk of their mouse diet. 

 Their destruction of insects, especially grasshoppers, is no doubt beneficial 

 but seems to be only fortuitous, one turkey or chicken probably eating as 

 many of these in a day as all the foxes of a square mile in the same length of 

 time. When the fox comes along, as he is ever doing, and eats the turkey, 

 methinks his value as an insect-destroyer suddenly vanishes. 



The following wild animals are also preyed on by both species of foxes : 

 fawns, rabbits, squirrels, woodchucks, opossums, skunks, porcupine, muskrats, 

 weasels, all kinds of game birds, any kind of small bird and the eggs and 

 young of all species. Of domestic animals, young lambs, pigs and poultry 

 form no small share of their diet. They also eat a large variety of wild fruits 

 and nuts and have been known to eat corn. 



In summing up his observations and data Dr.* Warren says: "Foxes do 

 unquestionably more harm than good. The great destruction of wild birds is, 

 I believe, of more loss to agricultural interests than the benefit such interests 

 receive from foxes catching destructive mammals, grasshoppers and other 

 forms of insect Hfe. Foxes not only destroy all kinds of song and insect- 

 eating birds and eggs they can get but they consume game of all kinds — and 

 many game birds at certain seasons of the year eat harmful insects. Advices 

 from different parts of our state, especially in some western counties, show 

 that foxes kill a great many young lambs and sometimes destroy whole litters 

 of pigs ; this means a loss of money which in the aggregate is considerable 

 every year. There is little doubt they destroy annually many thousands of 



