76 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



aid of ' villanous saltpetre.' He is not easily shot, and 

 will stand a charge fired broadside at a short distance 

 without the slightest injury or apparent notice, beyond a 

 slight quickening of his pace. His thick fur and tough 

 skin turn the pellets. Even when mortally wounded, life 

 will linger for hours. 



The ordinary idea of the fox is that of a flying 

 frightened creature tearing away for bare existence ; he is 

 really a bold and desperate animal. The keeper will tell 

 you that once, when for some purpose he was walking 

 up a deep dry ditch, his spaniel and retriever suddenly 

 ' chopped ' a fox, and got him at bay in a corner, when he 

 turned, and in an instant laid the spaniel helpless and 

 dying, and severely handled the retriever. Seeing his 

 dogs so injured and the fox as it were under his feet, the 

 keeper imprudently attempted to seize him, but could not 

 retain his hold, and got the sharp white teeth clean 

 through his hand. 



Though but once actually bitten, he recollects being 

 snapped at viciously by another fox, whom he found in 

 broad daylight asleep in the hollow of a double mound, 

 with scarcely any shelter, and within sixty yards of a 

 house. Reynard was curled upon the ivy which in the 

 hedges trails along the ground. The keeper crawled up 

 on the bank and stopped, admiring the symmetry of the 

 creature, when, purposely breaking a twig, the fox was up 

 in a second, and snarled and snapped at his face, then 



