418 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN TEE 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 — Is being superseded 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 run-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. 



