HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 91 



heather sown broadcast; but the rabbits should be 

 wired out, as indeed they ought to be from all young 

 coverts and plantations whatever the nature of such 

 coverts may be. Stiff fencing round them is im- 

 portant. 



Osier-beds are also favourite haunts for foxes who 

 have no objection to the neighbourhood of water so 

 long as they have a dry spot to kennel in ; indeed 

 water is very convenient for the fox, so much food 

 does he obtain on the banks of a stream or lake. 

 Foxes can and do catch wild duck, springing at them 

 as they take flight, and once when a lake near a house 

 where I was staying was frozen over, a fox or foxes 

 actually attacked the swans and killed, but did not 

 carry off, a young swan. We found it afterwards 

 bitten through the neck. The osier covert has this 

 advantage on an estate, that it is a crop of some 

 value. I have always noticed that such coverts in 

 the midland counties, where I have seen them, are 

 particularly favoured by foxes. 



From the question of artificial coverts we pass to 

 that of artificial earths. The covert is an assistance 

 to nature, a permission to plant-growth to have its 

 own way. All our care is to keep the shelter thick 

 and give the foxes a secure home. We place them, 

 indeed, where coverts were not, in order that we may 



