CHAPTER XI 



THE FOX AND HIS FUR 



There are few fur-bearing animals which are clothed 

 in a greater variety of fur than the fox. Hardly any 

 two skins are exactly alike. No creature has been 

 more familiar to me all my life than the fox. Yet 

 until I sat down to write this book I had had but 

 very few fox-skins in my hands. But for the purpose 

 of giving a true account of the fox his fur is not an 

 unimportant matter. When once we begin on any 

 such study of nature the interest and the material seem 

 alike inexhaustible. In the course of my inquiries 

 I discovered that the common fox and his various 

 relations were as important commercially as they are 

 to sport. 



It is said that a board-school boy, being requested 

 to write an essay on the pig, asserted that ' this 

 animal has four legs and a curly tail, is interesting 

 when alive, and refreshing when dead.' So we find 

 that the fox is a most interesting animal in life and 



