70 THE FOX. 



low estimate. In the first place, the St George 

 Island vixens produce from 5 to 12 cubs to the 

 litter, whereas the wild vixens of this country 

 produce from 4 to 9. Again, it may be taken 

 that the accidental death-rate is higher among 

 animals that are purely wild than among those 

 fed and protected by man, so that in all probability 

 the stock in this country is close upon 13,000 

 breeding pairs. 



ENEMIES AFIELD. 



Afield, Reynard is no more popular than is a 

 prowling cat in the hedgerows or a sparrow-hawk 

 in the pine-tree. When out at night-time, I 

 have marked his passage down from the heather 

 into the fertile valley-levels by the frenzied calling 

 of the pewits, circling over him, accompanied 

 occasionally by the drumming of snipe and the 

 wild alarm of the curlews. The pewits are truly 

 the sentries of the night during the spring of the 

 year, and their unrelenting watchfulness must 

 occasion Reynard many a muttered oath as he 

 sallies forth on booty bent. He will hide in a 

 drain or in a stone wall in order to get rid of them, 

 for so long as he remains visible they will assuredly 

 follow him, one bird keeping up the vigil till it is 

 relieved by another, and so on by mutual arrange- 

 ment from field to field. 



Sometimes comparative silence reigns upon the 

 uplands. The moon is not yet out and the stars 

 are dim. One hears the scream of a hare two 

 fields away; it fades, and the silence closes in 

 again like the closing of water at the stern of a 

 vessel. Then suddenly a pewit calls. The call 

 is answered shrilly, then repeated. Reynard is 

 abroad, and in a minute or so the whole mountain- 



