OF HARTING. 235 



clear moonlight nights, a most harrowing note often 

 startles the silence of our parks and fields. Many a 

 solitary traveller on hearing it, has felt " each par- 

 ticular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the 

 fretful porcupine," and has hurried home under the 

 conviction that a deed of violence has been per- 

 petrated on some " unprotected female." This note, 

 which startles the unaccustomed ear as a sudden 

 screeching yell, more easily remembered than de- 

 scribed, is in reality the cheerful voice of the Vixen, 

 or bitch fox ! We have seen the animal in the act 

 of uttering it in the open fields, and again heard it 

 at intervals of a few minutes, gradually becoming 

 fainter and fainter, until it was lost in the distance. 

 Curious tales are told of the effect of this most dis- 

 cordant cry on many persons who never heard it 

 before, but we refrain from repeating them. We need 

 only add that from its frequency, we may reasonably 

 conclude that foxes are numerous in our covers, indeed 

 we have other evidences of this fact, as sundry owners 

 of poultry and preservers of game willingly admit, 

 and everyone in the parish knows that Reynard not 

 only affords frequent sport to the patrons of the 

 "Noble Science" who hunt the district, but now and 

 then to some of them, an opportunity of technically 

 "coming to grief!" Innumerable anecdotes, illus- 

 trative of the cunning of the fox are related, many of 

 them no doubt highly coloured ; but the following, 

 which we have never seen in print, may be depended 

 on, and if necessary, corroborated by one or more of 

 the eye-witnesses of the incident here given, who are 

 still living in the parish. At a battue in the Old Copse, 

 many years since, a gentleman who was stationed in 

 the Forty Acres at the edge of the cover, shot a hare, 

 immediately afterwards a fox started out of the cover, 

 deliberately made his way towards the game, "lifted" 

 it, and bore it off in triumph. The gentleman referred 

 to, being a well-known M. F. H., as well as a first-rate 



