Where Town and Country Meet 



atives live; yet it would be no small sport 

 to locate that bevy of birds with a good dog, 

 scatter them in these fairly open scrub oak 

 patches, and try a few stirring shots upon 

 the wing, as the singles and doubles whirred 

 away through the winter sunshine. 



A fox has been across the bit of clearing, 

 too possibly in pursuit of the quail, as his 

 delicate, clear-cut track parallels theirs. 

 Think of a fox prowling about within a bow- 

 shot of the outermost factory of a city of 

 one hundred thousand inhabitants ! not com- 

 ing there by venturesome chance, but dwell- 

 ing in the vicinity the year round, safely 

 and snugly housed beneath some splintered 

 ledge of rocks. He has this distinct reward 

 of his temerity, that there are, as it were, 

 two strings to his gastronomical bow the 

 wild creatures of his natural domain, and 

 the henyards and chicken-coops of the mill- 

 hands, under the very shadow of the en- 

 croaching brushwood. One good, fat hen 

 will go as far as six quail or forty mice, be 

 it remembered, and one such catch means 

 two or three days of plenty and ease for 

 Reynard in his burrow under the rocks. 



You may know a fox trail in the snow by 

 198 



