SPORTS OF THE WINTER WOODS 303 



ging along in the full daylight. The very keen- 

 ness of the animal seems sometimes to work his 

 undoing. He knows well that the dogs cannot 

 catch him so he jollies along just in front of them 

 over his accustomed route where he knows every 

 possible pitfall of the way. And the hunter wait- 

 ing- to leeward shoots him. Had the fox had 

 fewer brains and simply bolted in a panic as soon 

 as the dogs got on his trail he might have lived 

 to bolt again the next time. Once in a while you 

 find a panicky fox that does this. When the dogs 

 get after 'him he makes a straight streak for king- 

 dom-come and the hunter with the gun waits in 

 vain. 



But on days when there is no gunning going 

 on the fox will sometimes walk right onto a man. 

 Recently my next-door neighbor, tramping his 

 oak woods with no thought of stealth, rustling 

 through fallen leaves and snapping twigs, walked 

 round a corner of a woodpile and met a fox trot- 

 ting along in the opposite direction. The animal 

 gazed at him in astonishment for a second and 

 then fled. My neighbor accounts for it in this 

 way: The fox has brains. Consequently he 

 gets into a brown study as a man will, planning 

 affairs and studying out situations. Woodland 



