62 THE FOX 



and often with success. Once a fox climbed a 

 thatched roof and crouched close to the chimneys. It 

 was cold weather and the chimneys were warm, and 

 there he remained until the next day. His footmarks 

 were found in a sprinkling of snow that fell in the 

 night. Another fox took refuge in a pigstye, where 

 there were a sow and a litter of piglings. No one 

 thought of looking there, but a farm lad going to 

 feed the pigs in the morning saw the fox come out 

 and with a gay swish of his brush canter off. 



But no doubt there comes a moment when, at the 

 end of a long chase, his strength exhausted and wiles 

 expended, a sense of his fate reaches him. When 

 his enemies, the crows and magpies, swoop and 

 chatter over his head, and the cry of the hounds takes 

 a shriller, angrier note, in tones which in the jungle 

 language speak of their eagerness for blood in a way 

 that he understands, then, doubtless, he realises his 

 danger. I have seen a fox turn in a dry ditch and, 

 facing his foes, die fighting. In any case the end 

 is swift, and for the fox it is the price he pays for all 

 those things hunting his prey, love, and seclusion 

 he likes best. But never at any moment of the chase 

 can he feel what a man would feel. The mind of the 

 animal cannot form the image to clothe his misery. 

 His feelings are by so much less painful, as they are 



