387 



GOOD FOXES ARE DEAD FOXES. 



Seeing that I was interested in his observations, my 

 companion continued and spoke about as follows: 



"During- the last forty years a large portion of my time has 

 been spent in lumber camps and places like you see about us. 

 I have always taken a deep interest in wild animals, and am 

 quite familiar with their haunts and curious ways. Some of 

 them are, through a lack of proper knowledge, often most 

 wrongfully condemned, but Foxes should not be included in 

 this abused group. Careful observation leads me to say, good 

 Foxes are dead Foxes, but their skins, if the animals are de- 

 stroyed by poison, will not bring the highest market price; and 

 expert fur-dealers readily recognize the ones which have been 

 killed with poison. 



"I am told that down in the vicinity of Philadelphia people — 

 but surely they are not farmers — love and protect the Foxes, 

 and say they are good things to have around farms to destroy 

 vermin. I, of course, don't know anything aJbout the habits of 

 Foxes which live down there, but I doubt if they are a whit 

 better than the ones you an hour ago heard those men talk- 

 ing about in such harsh terras. 



THEY COULDN'T UNDERSTAND. 



"You remerrtber, I smiled and winked at you, but said noth- 

 ing, when 'Andy' talked about dead Foxes as he pulled the 

 Pheasant's breast meat out of the Fox's stomach you asked 

 him to cut open; and, no doubt, you call to mind that all the 

 men said they couldn't understand why it was that four or 

 five years ago a man with a pair of good dogs might hunt all 

 day and never start a Fox, but now, if all the 'run-ways' were 

 covered by good marksmen, a party would get three or four 

 in a day. When I first came here, about fourteen years ago, 

 Foxes were very numerous, and when I fc und they killed so 

 many Pheasants, Wild Turkeys and Rabbits, as well as all 

 kinds of poultry, and sometimes young lambs, I tried to trap 

 them but had poor success; they were too smart. 



VALUABLE INFORMATION. 



"One day as good luck would have it, I hired a man who 

 had spent much of his time, in early life, with trappers in the 

 far west. He suggested, that if I wanted to kill Foxes, it 



