418 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



CHAPTER XV. 



FOXES. 



Foxes very Numerous in the West. Hunting-clubs. Various Species 

 and Varieties of Foxes. Difference between the American and the 

 European Red Fox. Size, Color, Characteristics, and Value of Fur of 

 the Prairie, Cross, Black, Silver, Swift, and Arctic Foxes. Difference 

 between the Red and the Gray Fox. The Latter trees, but rarely runs 

 to Earth. A true Woodland Animal. Its Food. Is being superseded 

 by the Red Species. The Dwarf or Island Fox. Lives on Insects. 

 Fearlessness and Numbers. Cause of its Diminutive Size. Value of 

 Fox-skins in Commerce. 



FOXES are very numerous throughout the West, as many 

 a farmer and stock-raiser knows to his sorrow ; but instead 

 of utilizing them as objects of the chase, and getting madly 

 enthusiastic over the runs they afford, they destroy them 

 in a more practical manner by spreading strychnine over 

 meat and placing it where it will do most good by captur- 

 ing them in traps made of steel, and by shooting them as 

 they take to their familiar rim-ways when roused by the 

 baying of many mongrels. 



Grand battues are sometimes held, and a section of coun- 

 try is then almost cleared of them ; for few can escape the 

 circle of hunters that drive them toward a centre, and shoot 

 them down as they run about in a bewildered manner, or 

 catch them by the neck or tail and knock their heads against 

 a tree or a rock. These people have no time to waste on 

 sentimental dashes and the music of the hounds, and a 

 fox is to them only a midnight assassin that preys on their 

 poultry. " Gone away " is not a pleasant sentence to them ; 

 as it means that they have lost four or five dollars' worth 

 of fur, and that their farm-yard will soon be in mourning 

 for defunct fowls, which are considered of more value than 

 all the living foxes in the neighborhood. 



