THE FOX 127 



though such is the case with dog foxes, the vixens 

 often run very stoutly in February. Owing to the 

 above circumstance there is greater difficulty in 

 finding foxes during that month than any other, 

 as they congregate in the neighbourhood of some 

 vixen, near where a litter of foxes is usually bred ; 

 and, consequently, that is the only part Hkely to 

 be a tolerably sure find at this particular time 

 of the year. 



It has been asserted in a sporting pubhcation, 

 not long since, as well as on other occasions, that 

 if a fox when he is moved by hounds is not pressed 

 in the chase, he will only keep a certain distance 

 before the pack. According to that idea, it matters 

 not what pace the hounds go; as the fox stops 

 when hounds come to a check. But this assertion 

 is not borne out by the facts, at all events only 

 occasionally, where a fox has been often disturbed 

 by the hare-hounds, or other dogs ; on which 

 occasions he will not go straight away, or keep on. 

 But that good wild foxes do not dwell in the way 

 asserted above, innumerable proofs can be given of 

 the following description. On one occasion a fox 

 was found by the hounds belonging to the writer 

 in an outside cover which adjoined an open country 

 for ten or twelve miles, and after a ring or two was 

 killed in about an hour. A gentleman who came 

 late to cover, met a fox two miles off, going straight 



