94 



THE FOX 



The question of artificial earths is a different 

 one ■ it is an interference with nature. Most of 

 the foxes that take to them are hand-reared. A 

 litter of cubs is to be moved ; an artificial earth is 

 prepared, they are wired in, and fed for a time. 

 If the cubs once take to an earth, natural or arti- 

 ficial, they will come back to it as to a refuge in 

 time of trouble. Still more is this the case if a vixen 

 can be induced to lay up her cubs in one. I speak 

 with a good deal of diffidence about artificial earths, 

 not having had much to do with them, and I find a 

 considerable difference of opinion about them among 

 people of knowledge. The estimation of the value 

 of artificial earths ranges from the idea that they are 

 actually superior to the natural earth, in that they 

 are more easily kept clean, to that in which they are 

 regarded as necessary evils. 



Again, there are some people who seem to have 

 had no difficulty with the foxes. They have made 

 an artificial earth, and a fox has taken possession of 

 it at once. Others have failed to induce foxes to 

 occupy them at all. Probably the truth is that where 

 foxes are found in artificial earths we are not told 

 everything. There are obvious reasons for not 

 publishing the situation of an artificial earth, or 

 talking too much about the introduction of foxes. 



