io6 Horse and Hound. 



himself with anything of a conspicuous nature 

 that threatens violence to him. 



If given half a chance for existence in a com- 

 munity, his ability to circumvent his would-be 

 destroyers, combined with his prolificness, will al- 

 ways maintain him, for there is no racial suicide 

 in the fox family. His whole life is one sequence 

 of crime and mischievous shedding and wasting 

 of blood, and every man's hand is against him, 

 and it is only the instinctive desire for self-pres- 

 ervation possessed in common by all animals 

 that enables him to hold his own in the struggle 

 for existence. 



There are about twenty species of the fox, dis- 

 tributed in every country except Australia and 

 South America. While there are about half of 

 this number found in America, among whom are 

 the arctic, black, and silver fox, I shall confine 

 myself to the wily red and his cowardly cousin, 

 the gray. 



The red fox was unknown in America pre- 

 vious to [760, at which time a number of them 

 were imported from England and liberated on 

 Long Island. They made their way to the main- 

 land, and to-day are found from North Carolina 

 and Tennessee to the whole notheastern part of 

 the United States, as far west as Montana, and as 

 far north as Alaska. 



The red fox is forty inches in length and will 

 average about thirteen or fourteen inches in 



