Red Fox 
[| have more than once seen a fox turn and drive the 
hounds back when they got too close; so he trots along at 
his leisure, husbanding his strength and scheming to keep out 
of the way of the hunter. From time to time he will go back 
in his own footsteps for a distance, and then leap away to 
one side and go off in a new direction. Again he runs along 
on top of a rail fence or stone wall, or over the wet stones of 
a shallow brook. 
One of his favourite tricks is to cross over deep water on 
thin ice just strong enough to bear him, knowing that in all 
probability the hounds will break though, and perhaps be swept 
under the ice if the current is strong enough; more than one 
valuable dog has been drowned in this manner, but I have 
never known a fox to miscalculate the strength of the ice and 
break through himself. If the stream is not wholly frozen over, 
he runs along at the very edge of the deep water, where the 
ice is thin and treacherous, until he comes to a place where he 
can jump across to the thin ice that reaches out from the 
Opposite bank. 
Then away he goes across the meadows, headed for some 
sheltered nook he knows of, where he may curl up in the sun 
on the warm pine needles and sleep until the noisy hounds, 
footsore and apparently all but exhausted, come panting up to 
awake him. When the snow is very light and dry, and just 
deep enough to make it harder for the fox than for the hounds, he 
has a much worse time of it; but it much oftener happens 
that while the hounds plunge in up to their breasts at every 
step, he skips off over the white surface without breaking 
through. Although he knows of three or four dens within easy 
reach, it is only when wounded or tired out by a long run in 
light snow that an old fox ever takes to earth, though last 
season’s cubs sometimes become frightened when the hounds 
get too close, and allow themselves to be driven in. 
Except in very rough weather, foxes prefer to sleep in the 
open air, in cool weather choosing the south side of a hill away 
from the wind. 
While they do most of their hunting in the morning and 
evening twilight, they are up and about more or less at all hours 
of the day and night, and are frequently to be seen out after 
game at high noon in the hottest part of the summer, or sitting on 
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