56 THE FOX 



observe the actual exchange. There was one fox I 

 knew of that lived in a hedgerow. Though he was, 

 as I believe, but a cub of the last spring, he was a 

 precocious one, for when hounds came we never 

 could find him. At last we brought a fox on a good 

 scenting day from some distance. The pace had 

 been very fast, hounds had started on good terms 

 with their quarry and had been screaming at his 

 brush for twenty minutes or more when we reached 

 the hedgerow. There was never a pause or a halt, 

 but the fox we rolled over six or seven minutes later 

 was a light-coloured one, and quite fresh. The hedge- 

 row cub— that young reprobate, the robber of hen- 

 roosts, the stealer of scraps, a parasite of the pig- 

 stye — was killed. The hunted fox was seen plodding 

 wearily back to the woodlands whence he came 

 the same afternoon. No doubt this one, the bigger, 

 stronger, and older, came down on the hedge- 

 row haunter sleeping the sleep of the selfish, and 

 rousing him out, coiled down in his lair until hounds 

 had gone on. 



A fox knows, too, that he is at a disadvantage in a 

 strange country, and most runs are limited in distance 

 by the extent of country ordinarily travelled by the fox. 

 This is about four or five miles as a rule. When the 

 fox reaches the limits of his knowledge he generally 



