€()(^ ;Ea^ of te}t &anb 



possess the land at night and we humans take to our 

 dens. 



One of the high roads of the foxes runs across the 

 farm. Foxes, Hke men, are more or less mechanical 

 in their coming and going. They will move within 

 certain well-defined boundaries, running certain defi- 

 nite routes ; crossing the stream at a particular ford 

 every time, traveling this ridge and not that, leaving 

 the road at this point, and swinging off in just such 

 a circle through the swamp. 



One autumn two foxes were shot at my lower bars 

 as they were jumping the little river. Their road 

 crosses the stream here, then leads through the 

 bars, along the base of the ridge, and up my path to 

 the pasture. 



I stood in this path one night when a fox that 

 the dogs were driving came up behind me, stopped, 

 and sniffed at my boots. This last November, 1907, 

 a young fox, leaving the hounds in the tangle of 

 his trails, trotted up this same path, turned in the 

 pasture, and came up to the house. He halted on 

 the edge of the lawn just above the woodchuck hole 

 that I mentioned a few pages back, and for full ten 

 minutes sat there in the moonlight yapping back at 



207 



