416 



caused me to lose several good shots as they flushed 

 aud drove away several Pheasants and a Wild Turkey. 

 The noisy dogs kept running to and fro in this thick 

 covert for at least two hours and I thought they were 

 after Rabbits, but finally a Gray Fox came out into a 

 path and a man shot it. When the Fox w-as killed the 

 hounds left and we were not bothered any more. My 

 companion said it was a very common habit of this 

 species, when pursued by dogs in thick underbrush, to 

 act as this one did. 



RARE, IF POUND AT ALL, IN SOME COUNTIES. 



Gray Foxes are frequently met with in different, in 

 fact almost all, sections of the State, but there are 

 probably fifteen times as many, if not more, of the Red 

 Foxes in Pennsjivania. I have never seen a Gray Fox 

 in Chester county where I have spent several years in 

 field work, and the Messrs. Weil, who make a special 

 business of purchasing raw furs in Chester, Lancaster, 

 Montgomery and Delaware counties, say they never 

 have had but one Gray Fox, and that was killed in 

 Maryland. Fox hunters in Chester, Delaware and 

 Montgomery counties report that they never find any 

 Gray Foxes. 



THET TAKE TO TREES. 



The Gray Fox to escape its enemies will sometimes 

 ascend the inclined trunk or large pendent and low 

 limbs O'f trees. Up in the wilds of Clinton county, 

 where this species is of fre(]uent occurrence and a 

 menace to the existence of its ground-dwelling feath- 

 ered neighbors, it seems some of them possess monkey- 

 like ability as tree climbers; at least, such infei'cnce 

 can be drawn from the following paragraph published 



