112 WOODLAND CREATURES 



choice ? Who can say ? The gloomy night told 

 no tales ! 



The dog-fox certainly wanders far afield in 

 the breeding season, especially in districts where 

 foxes are not too numerous, when he may have 

 to cover miles of country to find a mate. It is 

 under such circumstances that hounds have had 

 their greatest runs, for, caught sleeping out far 

 from headquarters, a fox, at the first hint of danger, 

 immediately makes for home. Then it is that 

 extraordinary points are recorded and that history 

 is made. 



I have often wondered how a fox manages 

 that mates with a vixen far from his own territory, 

 for there is plenty of evidence to show that the 

 pairs keep together, the male helping to provide 

 for the family, so when a fox allies himself with a 

 vixen of a strange district, does he make her 

 come home with him, or does he go and live in her 

 country ? I fancy the latter, for it is the vixen 

 which will select the place in which the cubs are 

 to be reared. 



Before going on to write of the cubs, it must 

 be mentioned that the courtship is not always 

 a peaceful one, for sometimes rival suitors do 

 battle for the lady's favours. My brother once 

 had the luck to be, not an eye-witness, but an " ear- 

 witness/' of a fight. He was coming through a 

 wood just as it was getting dark when he heard 

 a fox bark. He stopped to listen, and soon heard 

 another call in the opposite direction, to which 

 the first replied, whereupon a vixen screamed 



