THE FOX 117 



too. Where the hill fox scores is that it has to 

 travel farther and work harder for a living, rabbits 

 being scarce on the Welsh Hills, on the Fells of 

 the Lake District, and on the Scotch Highlands, 

 so it usually has to cross a lot of country before it 

 finds a meal. This means that it is a bolder, wider- 

 ranging fox, but of real difference there is none, 

 and throughout the British Isles we have but 

 the one species. 



In conclusion I would like to give a word of 

 advice to any one who may contemplate making 

 a pet of a fox that is don't. The fox is one of 

 the most beautiful, charming, and fascinating of 

 creatures, but it is always a wild animal which 

 should be roaming the woods. It has no grain 

 in its character of that devotion to man which 

 makes the dog what it is. I have had several 

 tame foxes, and been well acquainted with many 

 others, and can only say that the fox is not a 

 domesticatable creature ; however tame your 

 cub may be, there sooner or later comes a time 

 when you must either turn it loose in the woods, 

 or condemn it to become a captive, tied up by 

 collar and chain, or imprisoned in a kennel, when 

 it leads a dull, unhappy, monotonous existence. 

 Far, far better, to let it live out its woodland 

 life, whether short or long, with its joys and sudden 

 dangers, its surprises and excitements. 



(According to the present classification there are 

 two species of fox in Europe, the common red fox, 

 Vulpes vulpes, Linn., of the Continent as a whole, 



