Wolves and Foxes 



shooting the foxes which skulked about their clearings, and even 

 now those found in wild, unsettled country are comparatively 

 easy to outwit. But the red fox of cultivated districts has 

 learned a great deal from watching the ways of men, and has 

 already very nearly caught up with Reynard of the Old World 

 in the matter of a highly developed intellect. 



He now holds his own against man, as much by boldness 

 and audacity as by caution; few of our wild animals look on 

 man with so little awe. 



Only last winter I saw two sturdy fox-hunters hurrying 

 through the snow, eager to head off a fox, which, judging 

 from their remarks which I overheard, they imagined would 

 cross the stream at a point a mile ahead. 



And all the time there was the fox they were after coolly 

 following in their footsteps at a safe distance, while the hounds, 

 baffled and outwitted, bayed dolefully in the woods somewhere 

 on the other side of the stream. 



This trick of following the hunter is not in the least un- 

 common. I have frequently, when returning in my own tracks 

 from a tramp on snow-shoes, found the fresh trail of a fox 

 who had been following me. 



But you will seldom catch him at it; the instant you stop 

 he slips behind a tree, and if you turn back, vanishes in the 

 shadow of the forests. 



I once saw my father driving home the cows on a sum- 

 mer evening with an old fox, of whose presence he was totally 

 unaware, trotting along the sunlit sheep-path scarcely one hun- 

 dred steps behind him. 



The fox's boldness in robbing hen-roosts is well known; 

 and as most foxes know too much to visit the same place 

 twice, it is only rarely that they get caught at it. 



1 know of one instance when an enthusiastic fox hunter, 

 arriving at daybreak in order to have an early start with the 

 hounds, heard a disturbance in his hen-pen, and looking in to 

 see what was the trouble, met a fox just coming out. 



The fox slipped by him and dashed away for the woods; 

 and the hunter, thinking that this certainly was a good begin- 

 ning for a day's sport, put his dogs on the trail, confident of 

 getting at least one new pelt that day. But all day the fox 

 eluded them, and when at nightfall they came home unsuc- 



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