THE FOX IN SUMMER 139 



of the outlaw, for the heaps of feathers and bones 

 and the heads of hapless ducks found there far 

 exceed the contents of the fox's larder in the covert. 

 " Rats and mice, and such small deer," young rabbits, 

 beetles, frogs, and snails form the usual menu of the 

 " gorse-covert fox," varied by occasional tribute from 

 a farmyard, but seldom fi^om a neighbouring one. Ex- 

 perience tells me that a fox very rarely indeed takes 

 fowls or ducks from the vicinity of the covert he 

 frequents, but, probably wishing to be at peace with 

 his neighbours, travels far afield for his poultry. 



I think that a fox does not manage to kill many 

 full-grown rabbits in the course of a year, but he 

 seldom fails to capture at least one young one in a 

 summer's evening ; many an hour have I wiled away 

 right pleasantly in watching the grace, activity, and 

 amazing swiftness of this " last of our wild beasts " 

 when in pursuit of the nimble coney. 



A few years ago there were two litters of cubs in 

 a gorse covert in my immediate neighbourhood, and 

 a portion of the field adjoining the covert had been 

 ploughed up ; this ploughed land formed a play- 

 ground and hunting-field for the cubs, and here I 

 often watched them receive their early lessons in 

 rabbit-catching from the vixen. About six in the 

 evening I used regularly to take up my position at a 

 corner of the covert, and seldom had many minutes 

 to wait before the cubs appeared in the open. 



When the sun was dropping low, and the stillness 

 of evening replaced that indescribable hum and bustle 

 which pervades the world during daylight even in 

 the sleepiest of sleepy hollows, I would move as 



