Red Fox 
in the spring, when there are young foxes to be protected, and in 
its tones there is a menace to all intruders. 
A fox’s ears are wonderfully keen, and he depends upon 
them much more than upon his eyesight, both in hunting and 
in avoiding his enemies. 
This morning, January 31, 1902, a little before noon I was 
crossing an open clayey pasture when I heard a crow in the 
distance give the call which means a fox in sight. Presently | 
saw Reynard himself trotting along at the edge of a pine grove; 
when he passed behind a thick clump I ran forward a little 
way and stopped, watching an opening among the trees where 
I felt pretty certain he would show himself again. Sure enough, 
in a very few minutes he appeared and trotted out across the 
meadows. 
He was at least one hundred and fifty yards away and go- 
ing from me, but the air was still and I squeeked like a meadow- 
mouse, hoping that perhaps his big ears might catch the sound 
even at that distance, though the sharpest human ears could 
scarcely have heard so faint a noise at a tenth part of the 
distance. 
Yet the fox heard it and stopped instantly, and turning, 
came leaping lightly over the hassocks in my direction. Every 
few rods he stopped, cocking his ears above the sere meadow- 
grass to listen; then I would squeek, a little lower each time, 
and instantly catching the direction of the sound, he would come 
trotting towards me, using greater caution than at first, and 
keeping under cover of the hassocks as if to avoid frightening 
his game. When he got within fifty yards there were no more 
hassocks or bunches of grass for concealment, only the smooth, 
sheep-trimmed sod where | crouched in plain sight, with my back 
to what little sun shone through the flecked and mottled clouds 
that covered the sky. He looked at me sharply as if mistrust- 
ing something, and if | had moved either my head or hand the 
fraction of an inch he would have been off like an arrow to the 
woods. But I held myself perfectly motionless, and when the ex- 
pression of his shrewd, gray face and the set of his ears showed 
that his suspicions were subsiding, | squeeked once more, very 
faintly, calling him at last almost up to me. But now he saw 
that there was certainly something wrong, and that I was neither 
a rock or stump or even an old scare-crow; so, to make sure, he 
a7I 
