MAMMALS. 



G81 



alone, it would stand in far better favor. As it is, it is hunted wherever 

 it occurs. In the chase it is full of wiles. It will double on its track, 

 take to the water, and do every conceivable thing to throw the dogs off the 

 scent, and at last it seeks its burrow, which may be placed among the 

 rocks, where it is next to impossible to dig the animal out. Some relish ;i 

 fox-hunt — not one of those imitations which have been introduced at New- 

 port and on Long Island, where a captive fox is let loose, but a real hunt 

 where a wild fox is the object of pursuit. I have engaged in one, and have 

 had a surfeit. Their track is found in the light snow, and the dogs are 

 set loose. On they go, their noses to the ground, while the human hunters 





Fig. 523. — Gray fox ( Vulpes cinereo-argentatus). 



take themselves to some favorite runway of the animal, and there await 

 his appearance. Sometimes the fox makes his journey a short one ; but 

 more often he prolongs it for miles, and the chase becomes a question of 

 endurance between dog and fox, and a severe trial upon the muscles of 

 the men. After all, the fox may escape ; but even if caught by dogs i ir 

 gun, there is little satisfaction, except to the farmer whose poultry-yard 

 has been plundered, in gazing on the last struggles of the sagacious little 

 beast. 



Among the other foxes are the kit, or burrowing-fox of our western 

 territories ; the common fox of Europe, whose cunning and duplicity are 

 scarce exaggerated in the mediaeval tale of Reineke Fuchs, and which 

 furnishes sport for the British squire and yeoman ; and the Arctic fox 



