THE LIFE OF A FOX 



THEY found him in the withy-bed by the mill he 

 had a wild-duck there only a week ago and chased 

 him without a break right away to Honey Lane, a 

 good ten miles as the crow flies. There he gave 

 them a loop that would have taken a good deal of 

 unravelling, but some one gave the trick away, and 

 they were on his scent again within ten minutes. 

 It was all up with him then, with those great hounds 

 running almost fresh, and himself the worse for a 

 week's irregular feeding. Nobody expected him to 

 put up another ten-mile run, but this is just what he 

 did, taking them close up to the gates of Brotheridge 

 Park before Music ran into him, and received a snap 

 in the face that she will remember. 



He was a bit of a nuisance to us this winter. 

 Many a man, however, who has done a hundred 

 times as much harm, has passed away under a mound 

 of flowers and deeply regretted. Vulpes was about 

 four years old, perhaps five next March. This is the 

 third winter that his bark has been heard in the night, 

 seldom unanswered by the scream of his vixen. Their 

 cubs were gambolling in the hill-field last May, Vulpes 

 making shy and phantom-like appearances, at any 

 rate while we watched, just dropping a freshly killed 

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