THE FELL FOX 25 



Brockbarrow, and the Nibthwaite and Park-a- 

 Moor coverts. 



This season, 1919, the same pack killed a big, 

 lean dog fox on November 25th, at Birk Brow in 

 the Winster valley. This fox weighed exactly 

 eighteen pounds, and was in hard condition. In 

 November, 1912, the Melbrake Hounds accounted 

 for a fox of nineteen pounds. They found him on 

 Low Fell, and ran him, by way of WhinfeU, to the 

 river Cocker. The stream being in flood, the fox 

 retraced his track to Low Fell, where he went to 

 ground. The terriers bolted him, and he gave a 

 further five-mile spin before he was run into at 

 Buttermere. On Thursday, January 15th, 1920, 

 the Coniston Foxhounds kiUed a nineteen-pound 

 dog-fox in the open, near Blea Tarn, Langdale. 

 This is an exceptionally heavy fox, even for the 

 fell country. 



In his habits, the fell fox differs little from his 

 relations in the low countries. In the daytime he 

 makes his couch at a high elevation, often on one 

 of the many heather or bleaberry covered ledges 

 which seam the face of the crags on the mountain 

 top. Occasionally he may lie at a lower elevation, 

 amongst the ling on the grouse ground, or in some 

 straggHng covert of larch or oak ; but his kind 

 generally prefer to make their kennel well up the 

 feU-side, where, except for the visit of an occasional 

 shepherd, they are free from disturbance. When 



