104 THE FOX 



carried the line along the wall, and naturally he threw 

 his tongue in the gateway. The huntsman concluded 

 that the hare had gone on, held hounds forward, and 

 a fresh hare springing up, the original hare escaped as 

 she deserved to do. Now a fox would hardly have 

 done this quite so elaborately. But then probably 

 hares and stags as a race have more experience of 

 being hunted because they are eatable, and naturally 

 in primitive times man pursued such animals as served 

 for food more eagerly than the mischievous ones. If 

 primitive man or his moderately civilised descendants 

 knew of the whereabout of a hare or stag, they were 

 all agog to kill him. But if the fox or wolf robbed 

 his neighbour he bore it patiently, and only turned his 

 attention to the less profitable animal when its depre- 

 dations were intolerable to himself. Even to this 

 day, hare-hunting, and where it survives wild- stag- 

 hunting, are more popular with farmers as a class 

 than fox-hunting. The same feeling survives, too, 

 in many sportsmen who like to feel that the game 

 or fish they shoot or catch will not be wasted. 



In truth it is not a fox's cunning but his simplicity 

 that makes him so valuable as a beast of chase. 

 When a fox runs straight from point to point, crosses 

 the fields in the middle, we call him a good fox and 

 celebrate his exploits in story and song. But such 



