62 THE FOX 



and often with success. Once a fox climbed a 

 thatched roof and crouched close to the chimneys. It 

 was cold weather and the chimneys were warm, and 

 there he remained until the next day. His footmarks 

 were found in a sprinkling of snow that fell in the 

 night. Another fox took refuge in a pigstye, where 

 there were a sow and a litter of piglings. No one 

 thought of looking there, but a farm lad going to 

 feed the pigs in the morning saw the fox come out 

 and with a gay swish of his brush canter off. 



But no doubt there comes a moment when, at the 

 end of a long chase, his strength exhausted and wiles 

 expended, a sense of his fate reaches him. When 

 his enemies, the crows and magpies, swoop and 

 chatter over his head, and the cry of the hounds takes 

 a shriller, angrier note, in tones which in the jungle 

 language speak of their eagerness for blood in a way 

 that he understands, then, doubtless, he realises his 

 danger. I have seen a fox turn in a dry ditch and, 

 facing his foes, die fighting. In any case the end 

 is swift, and for the fox it is the price he pays for all 

 those things — hunting his prey, love, and seclusion — 

 he likes best. But never at any moment of the chase 

 can he feel what a man would feel. The mind of the 

 animal cannot form the image to clothe his misery. 

 His feelings are by so much less painful, as they are 



