THE FOX 97 



deliberately lay down, curling himself up with 

 his brush over his nose, and thus remained, in full 

 view of everybody, apparently indifferent to the 

 hounds baying above and below. Sticks and 

 stones were flung at him, but all fell short of the 

 mark, and he remained unmoved for nearly three- 

 quarters of an hour, when some one, aiming better 

 than the rest, hit him with a bit of stone. He 

 was up and away in an instant, being out over 

 the top of the cliff before huntsman or pack 

 knew what had happened. They hunted him 

 for an hour afterwards, but he beat them in 

 the end. 



If it were not for hunting, where would the 

 fox be ? Almost certainly a refugee like 

 the wild cat and the marten in the most rocky 

 recesses of the hills, trapped and persecuted, 

 harried and shot, and only holding its own in 

 the most remote districts. As it is, toleration is 

 the portion of the fox throughout England, Ireland, 

 and the Lowlands of Scotland, but with that 

 toleration it has not degenerated into a semi- 

 domesticated creature like the pheasant. No, 

 wherever we meet with the fox it is a wild animal, 

 fearing and shunning man and all his works, a 

 hunter of rabbits, birds, and mice, a raider of 

 poultry-yards, and sometimes in mountainous 

 districts a slayer of young lambs. It is rarely 

 that the lowland foxes commit the latter crime, 

 it takes an old hill fox to do it. The average fox 

 of our English woods lives on much smaller fare, 

 rabbits being the principal item in its menu, as 



7 



