336 THE ARTIC FOX. 



thrown out. I accordingly followed the fence with the whole pack about me, clear 

 round the plantation, but without striking the trail again, or making any discovery. . 



The affair now became quite serious. The reputation of our hounds was suffering ; 

 and, besides, I found they were really losing confidence in themselves, and would 

 not run with half the staunch eagerness which had before characterized them. The 

 joke of being regularly baffled had been so often repeated that they now came to con- 

 sider it a settled thing that they were never to take another Fox again, and were dis- 

 posed to give up in despair. Some 'of the neighbors had grown superstitious about it, 

 and vowed that this must be a weir Fox, who could make himself invisible when he 

 pleased. 



At last I determined to watch at the fence-corner, and see what became of the Fox. 

 Within about the usual time I heard him heading towards the mysterious corner, as 

 the voices of the pack clearly indicated. I almost held my breath in my concealment, 

 while I watched for the appearance of this extraordinary creature. In a little while the 

 Fox made his appearance, coming on at quite a leisurely pace, a little in advance of 

 the pack. When he reached the corner, he climbed in a most unhurried and deliber- 

 ate way to the top rail of the fence, and then walked along it, balancing himself as 

 carefully as a rope-dancer. He proceeded down the side of the fence next to the forest 

 in which I was concealed. 



I followed cautiously, so as to keep him in view. Before he had thus proceeded 

 more than two hundred yards, the hounds came up to the corner, and he very deliberately 

 paused and looked back for a moment, then he hurried along the fence some paces 

 farther, and when he came opposite a dead but leaning tree which stood inside the 

 fence, some twelve or sixteen feet distant, he stooped, made a high and long bound to a 

 knot upon the side of its trunk, up which he ran, and entered a hollow in the top 

 where it had been broken off, nearly thirty feet from the ground, in some storm. I 

 respected the astuteness of the trick too much to betray its author, since I was now 

 personally satisfied ; and he continued for a long time, while I kept his secret, to be 

 the wonder and the topic of neighboring Fox-hunters, until at last one of them hap- 

 pened to take the same idea into his head, and found out the mystery. He avenged 

 himself by cutting down the tree, and capturing the smart Fox. 



The tree stood at such a distance from the fence that no one of us who had examined 

 the ground ever dreamed of the possibility that the Fox would leap to it ; it seemed 

 a physical impossibility, but practice and the convenient knot had enabled cunning 

 Reynard to overcome it with assured ease." 



ONE of the most celebrated species of the Foxes is the ARCTIC Fox, called by the 

 Russians PESZI and by the Greenlanders TERRIENNIAK. This animal is in very great 

 repute in the mercantile world on account of its beautifully silky fur, which in the 

 cold winter months becomes perfectly white. During the summer the fur is generally 

 of a gray, or dirty brown, but is frequently found of a leaden gray, or of a brown tint 

 with a wash of blue. Towards the change of the seasons the fur becomes mottled ; 

 and by reason of this extreme variableness has caused the animal to be known by 

 several different titles. Sometimes it is called the White Fox, sometimes the Blue Fox, 

 sometimes the Sooty Fox, sometimes the Pied Fox, and sometimes the Stone Fox. 



This animal is found in Lapland, Iceland, Siberia, Kamschatka, and North America, 

 in all of which places it is eagerly sought by the hunters for the sake of its fur. The 

 pure white coat of the winter season is the most valuable, and the bluish-gray fur of the 

 summer months is next to the white the color that is most in request. The soles of the 

 feet are thickly coated with hair, from which circumstance it has derived its name of 

 Lagopus, or hairy foot. 



It is found that this animal possesses the power of imitating the cries of the birds on 

 which it loves to feed, and it is probable that it employs this gift for the purpose of 

 decoying its prey to their destruction. Although it is sufficiently cunning in obtaining 

 its food, it seems to be remarkably destitute of the astute craft which aids the generality 

 of the Foxes to avoid hidden dangers or to baffle their foes. It is easily induced to enter 

 a trap, and will generally permit a hunter to approach within range of an easy shot. It 



