FOXES AND OTHER NEIGHBORS 243 



necticut where as many as a dozen foxes' holes have 

 been found in a season. This ridge is a couple of 

 miles from the village, and from it you look east- 

 ward over a swampy country to the wall of a wooded 

 mountain where wildcats live. The foxes make 

 their holes here underneath the large surface boulders 

 and the snow in the woods in winter is covered with 

 their tracks. They probably go considerable dis- 

 tances for their food, and no doubt rob many chick- 

 en-yards, especially in summer, when they can stalk 

 under cover; but they must also feed largely on 

 mice and woodchucks, birds and rabbits, the last 

 abounding in the swamp below. That foxes travel 

 long distances to definite objectives can be readily 

 inferred from their tracks. Again and again I have 

 come on a fresh fox track leading across a wide open 

 space which he had traversed the night before or 

 perhaps early that morning, and this track would 

 not vary a hair's-breadth from an air line. If you 

 will try to walk across a snow field a mile wide and 

 keep an air line you will realize that only the utmost 

 concentration of mind and vision upon some definite 

 objective on the farther side will enable you to do 

 it. When the fox is startled he usually is so sure 

 of himself that he merely seems to glide into a faster 

 trot. But sometimes he will gallop, and then he is 

 a pretty sight, all grace and speed and animated 

 nerves. It is a peculiarity of foxes, too, to pretend 

 not to see you. J. M. Barrie tells how he brought a 

 Scotch sheep-dog to London, and the dog rushed at 

 the sheep in a London park. When the sheep paid 

 no attention to him, he raised his head with what 

 dignity he could and continued to bark, pretending 



