THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 41 



drew him out from some leaves in a park, under 

 which he had buried himself. Both these places 

 were well chosen, for the hole was unknown until 

 the gardener discovered it, and a fox lying still under 

 dead leaves would give little or no scent, decayed 

 leaves being, as is well known, bad conductors. 



A fox's mind is continually being sharpened as 

 it is pitted against the wits of the animals he hunts 

 and of those by whom he is pursued, until a mature 

 fox sometimes manages never to be hunted at all, or if 

 hunted nearly always escapes. Every hunt has stories 

 of the ' old customer.' The fox that is generally 

 found at home gives a good run, is never caught, and 

 disappears at last. In the first place such foxes beat 

 hounds because they never throw away a chance, and 

 because they are in perfect health and condition. 

 The ' fitness ' to run far and fast of an animal that 

 has to work for his food will always be superior to 

 that of one who has his food brought to him as the 

 hound has. I often watched one such fox go away. 

 He was a standing dish in the hunt. If the day was 

 bad we could redeem it by drawing for the ' New 

 England ' fox, as he was called, from the name of 

 the covert. Through the gate, down the path, over 

 the stream at the bottom (a tributary of Tennyson's 

 brook, for I will never believe that Somerby brook 



