HUNTING IN THE SNOW 



creatures. On a non-hunting day you will get 

 plenty of healthy exercise by so doing, for hill- 

 foxes often travel long distances at night. You 

 will also probably discover hidden drains, gaps, 

 smoots and the like, which you knew nothing of 

 before, all of which discoveries may help you 

 to account for a fox on some future occasion 

 when you are hunting. 



IvOts of other tracks will be met with, in ad- 

 dition to those left by Reynard, but none of them 

 will lead you astray, unless you happen to strike 

 the footprints of a small dog. On the fells at 

 any rate, these would probably be accompanied 

 by the imprints of a human being, and the tracks 

 of the shepherd's collie are bigger than those of 

 even a large fox. A dog spreads out his toes 

 wider apart than a fox, and he generally trots, 

 whereas the fox will walk for long distances. 

 You may run across cat tracks, but these are 

 very much rounder than reynard's footprints, and 

 they never show the marks of the claws, except 

 when a cat has perhaps made a sudden spring. 

 The cat's claws are retractile, whereas those of 

 the dog and fox are fixtures. A small dog, such 

 as a terrier, which has a foot about the same size 

 as a fox, nearly always trots sometimes on three 

 legs ; and if you follow the tracks for a bit, you 

 will soon discover what made them. A fox has 

 his regular runways, and you will find out just 

 where he leases a wood, goes through a fence, or 

 jumps a wall. He will do the same thing when he 

 is hunted, so it will pay you to remember all 

 these places. When he gets to the boundary 

 of his own particular beat, he will generally turn 

 back, though in " clicketting " time, dog foxes 

 often go far beyond such bounds. Here and 

 there on a hillock, beside a post, or against a 



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