FOXES AND OTHER NEIGHBORS 245 



down a long hill near Litchfield, Connecticut, the 

 other day, with my engine off, I saw a beautiful big 

 fox sitting on a stump by the road, back to. I was 

 only a couple of hundred yards away when he heard 

 me and gave an instinctive spring off the stump 

 away from the road. But he no sooner landed than 

 he seemed ashamed of himself, and deliberately 

 turned, crossed the road in front of me, trotted 

 rapidly but calmly up the lee of a pasture wall to a 

 safe distance, and then sat on his haunches and 

 watched me slow up the car to observe him. 



The fox hunts, in many ways, like a dog, though 

 his ears are far keener, so that he can hear a field- 

 mouse squeak several hundred feet away. He 

 pounces on small prey like mice with his fore paws, 

 just as a field-trained dog will do, and when he digs 

 out a woodchuck he will keep backing out of the 

 hole and taking a look at the rear entrance to make 

 sure his quarry is not escaping, exactly like a good 

 working Airedale. There are many authenticated 

 instances of wild foxes making friends with farm 

 dogs, too, and playing with them. Whether this is 

 a ruse to make chicken-hunting safer, or merely a 

 sign of kinship, nobody can certainly say. It is 

 hard to believe the former, even of so clever an 

 animal as the fox. When it comes to fighting he is 

 quite as good as some dogs, and far quicker; but, 

 of course, he finds it easier and very much safer to 

 resort to strategy. 



Any one who sets out to accumulate fox stories, 

 especially from old-time fox-hunters, will soon have 

 a collection that will tax his memory and, not in- 

 frequently, his credulity. One of my old trapper 



