110 WOODLAND CREATURES 



little save the indistinct black shapes of some 

 cattle that were lying out in the meadow. Vainly 

 I peered into the darkness in the hope of seeing 

 something of the one that called, for I felt sure the 

 fox was making for a certain gap in the fence, 

 w r hence he would pass round a pond, and up the 

 bank to some gorse bushes where there is a big 

 colony of rabbits. If you listen to the foxes night 

 after night, if you study their trails left in gap 

 and gateway, you will find that they have their 

 highways, their recognized paths, and that these 

 are used year after year. I know of a certain 

 small gap in a hedge, a mere run through the 

 bottom of it, nearly always used by any fox 

 crossing that part of the country. In the morning 

 one will find a bit of brown hair caught on a brier, 

 and maybe a pad-mark in the soft earth ; there may 

 even be a whiff of that rank smell so characteristic 

 of the animal. But all this has already been 

 alluded to when speaking of tracking and trailing, 

 and we must return to the evening which was 

 being described, when all the foxes in the country- 

 side seemed to have gone mad. 



Hardly had the nearest one barked than fox 

 after fox replied to the challenge, or love-song, 

 for it was probably the latter. At any rate it 

 was something more serious than mere rabbit 

 hunting which had set all the foxes of the district 

 barking like a lot of silly dogs. The explanation 

 of the excitement, the answer to all these calls, 

 came suddenly and unexpectedly out of the 

 darkness near at hand came a wail, a terrible 



