204 THE FOX. 



never recover the scent. This circumstance having excited 

 some curiosity, it was at last discovered that he jumped upon, 

 and ran along a clipped hedge, at the end of which was an 

 old pollard oak tree, hollow in the middle. He crept into this 

 hollow, and lay concealed till the alarm was over. His re- 

 treat, however, being discovered, he was driven from it and 

 killed. Another fox selected a magpie's nest as a place of 

 retreat, and was discovered in consequence of a laboring man 

 having observed a quantity of bones, feathers of birds, &c., 

 on the ground under the nest. The following fact may be 

 relied upon, extraordinary as it may appear. I received it 

 from a gentleman of the strictest veracity, who communicated 

 it to me very recently, on his return from the south of France, 

 where he had been residing for some months. A friend of 

 his, with whom he passed much of his time there, was in the 

 habit of shooting in a part of the country where there was 

 much wild and rocky ground. Part of this rocky ground was 

 on the side of a very high hill, which was not accessible for a 

 sportsman, and from which both hares and foxes took their 

 way in the evening to the plain below. There were two 

 channels, or gullies made by the rains, leading from these 

 rocks to the lower ground. Near one of these channels, the 

 sportsman in question, and his attendant, stationed them- 

 selves one evening, in hopes of being able to shoot some hares. 

 They had not been there long, when they observed a fox 

 coming down the gully, and followed by another. After play- 

 ing together for a little time, one of the foxes concealed him- 

 self under a large stone or rock, which was at the bottom of 

 the channel, and the other returned to the rocks. He soon, 

 however, came back, chasing a hare before him. As the hare 

 was passing the stone where the first fox had concealed him- 

 self, he tried to seize her by a sudden spring, but missed his 

 aim. The chasing fox then came up, and finding that his 

 expected prey had escaped, through the want of skill in his 

 associate, he fell upon him, and they both fought with so 

 much animosity, that the parties who had been watching 

 their proceedings came up and destroyed them both. 



