THE FOX. 51 



vixen, owing to the cleverness with which she 

 hides her trail in passing to and from the den, 

 linking up the new tracks with the old, or resorting 

 to the densest undergrowth, where she can leap 

 from windfall to windfall. A vixen having been 

 located, the method most commonly employed is 

 to run her to earth with hounds. Sometimes the 

 vixen will not expose her cubs to danger by 

 denning up with them, however, and sometimes 

 trained hounds are not available, so that other 

 methods have to be resorted to. The blood- trail 

 is, alas ! among these. The man, armed with a 

 light rifle, lies in waiting for the vixen, and 

 wounds her more or less lightly, so that she leaves 

 a blood-trail. Her first thought is of her cubs, 

 and thither she goes ; but this time the old, old 

 tricks find the human sleuth still behind her, her 

 closely guarded secret betrayed by those tell-tale 

 spots in the snow. 



TRICKS WHEN HUNTED. 



History lives in Fox Country, but Leicestershire 

 is not the only county that breeds clever foxes. 

 Every master of fox-hounds can tell you the 

 history of some fox, which, surpassing his fellows 

 in fleetness and cunning, led hounds and huntsman 

 many a pretty chase, baffled them and checkmated 

 them, and finally left them with a mystery to 

 solve nothing but a mystery ! 



The beginning of wisdom is in profiting by 

 previous experience, and undoubtedly the fox does 

 this. Reynard knows that the scent he leaves 

 behind is the true cause of his peril, and does all 

 that he can to break or scatter that tell-tale line. 

 He will run along a railway track, knowing that 

 the glazed steel and the tarred sleepers do not 



