302 NEWFOUNDLAND 



shallows and darting in on the basking fish. Sometimes they 

 hunt in pairs and drive the fish to each other. In the autumn 

 they live on blueberries to a great extent, and will also eat 

 other fruits. The Indians have told me that they are the 

 deadly foe of the "weasel" (ermine), and that they kill and 

 eat these little mustelids whenever they come across them. 

 No Indian will touch the carcase of a caribou which a fo.x 

 has once visited, owing to the practice the animal has of 

 urinating upon whatever food he has found and wishes to 

 revisit. The urine of the fox is very pungent, and its evil 

 smell doubtless keeps off other predatory animals. 



Foxes like to frequent high stony ground. Here they 

 always have one or more lairs to which they retire in rough 

 weather. In such places grouse are generally to be found, 

 and I have often noticed piles of fresh-water mussels on 

 exposed eminences, where they have doubtless been carried 

 and opened by foxes. 



Foxes have a remarkable sense of hearing, the Indians 

 calling them from a distance of 200 yards simply by sucking 

 the back of the hand in imitation of a vole or distressed hare. 

 When the Indian desires to trap foxes in a new ground he 

 always repairs to the highest point, and, looking down on the 

 landscape, selects for his first traps the narrow spits of land 

 dividing two large lakes. Foxes always pass to and fro along 

 such natural bridges, and almost invariably to one side of the 

 numerous deer paths, as they do not like to walk in damp 

 places if they can help it. 



My friend, Mr. John McGaw, witnessed an interesting 

 exhibition of the playfulness of this animal shortly after he 

 left me on my third journey. He was stalking two stags on 

 Serpentine Hills, near the Gander, when he noticed one of 

 the stags staring stupidly and backing away from some object 



