On a Fox Trail 



scattered the snow. How plainly you can 

 see on one side the imprint of the wing- 

 tips! The bird flushed directly out of its 

 snow-saucer. There was no time to get a 

 running start. The fox may have been in 

 the air at the same time with the grouse. 

 Time and again I have seen in the snow the 

 evidence of such a marvelous escape. The 

 fox rarely captures a grouse, though he 

 comes so tantalizingly near it that it must 

 make him grate his teeth with exasperation. 



Our prowler did not get as near to this 

 bevy of quail as he did to the grouse. You 

 see where he began his jumps. The quail 

 were standing in a close-packed circle, tails 

 in and heads out. That is the way the cun 

 ning little fellows always sleep, presenting 

 a cordon of watchfulness to an intruder 

 who might approach from any direction. 

 Their united intuition of danger detected 

 Reynard before he was barely in sight by 

 moonlight, and with a whisk and a whirr 

 they were off together like eddying dead 

 leaves. 



We fancy there is a dejected look in the 

 fox's trail, as it leads us again through the 

 woods with its dotlike footsteps. Here we 

 217 



