Fox-Hunting in California 7 i 



in colour. The sides of the muzzle and the chin are 

 black, which gives the fox the appearance of a raccoon 

 and withal a very pleasant face. It has a large head, 

 quite as large in some instances as that of the gray fox, 

 but in habit the California fox is entirely different. The 

 gray and the red fox are runners, while Reynard of Cali- 

 fornia rarely makes a very long run, and always takes to 

 trees when hard pressed, leaping into them when it can, 

 " shinning " up when it cannot. I have watched these 

 foxes at night by the light of the moon, when they 

 thought they were chased by a coyote. They went 

 up the straight trunk of an orange tree by this process, 

 " hitching along," embracing the tree like a cat, and 

 once on a limb reaching the others and the top of the 

 tree in a marvellously short space of time. 



I once kept two foxes as pets. A paisano brought 

 them to me and said that they were tame, but I learned 

 later that one bit him eight or ten times on the way 

 down from the mountain. I fastened them to a tree as 

 I would dogs, and invariably found them in the tree-top 

 in the morning. In the arroyo the fox lives in the 

 thick masses of vine during the day, makes his den in 

 some hole in a cliff, coming out mainly at night, though 

 I have often met them in the daytime in the chaparral 

 that covers the lower hills. Any canon that comes 

 down from the Sierras is the home of this little red and 

 gray fox. You may find him at Santa Barbara, in the 

 beautiful glens and defiles of the Santa Ynez, or along 

 and around Bear Mountain, back of Santa Paula. He 



