of tty 



only sixteen miles by the roundabout road from Bos- 

 ton Common! But let him live here and keep 

 chickens ! 



One day, as we were sitting down to a noon 

 dinner, I heard the hens squawk, and out I tore. 

 The fox had a big black hen and was making off for 

 the woods. I made after the fox. There is a sharp 

 ridge back of the henyard, which was thickly cov- 

 ered with stump sprouts and slashings. The fox took 

 to the ridge. From the house to the henyard it is 

 all downhill, and I wanted that hen. She weighed a 

 good eight pounds, a load for any fox, and what 

 with her squawking and flopping, the tangle of brush 

 and the steep hillside, it is small wonder that just 

 short of the top I fell upon her, to the great sorrow 

 of the fox, who held on until I was within reach of him. 



But such an experience as this, while it would be 

 quite impossible to a summer boarder, is yet a not 

 uncommon experience for my unobserving, fox-hating 

 neighbors. They seldom see more, however ; whereas, 

 a study of the lay of the land hereabout reveals a 

 real fox community overlying our farm community 

 like some faint tracing. We humans possess the land 

 by day and the foxes keep to their dens; the foxes 



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