MUZZLED BY A SNARE 247 



supper. Heads of rabbits, and nothing else, in 

 snares, rejected maws lying near by the disinter- 

 ment of poaching cats which the keeper has buried 

 these show where hungry foxes have passed. By day 

 their presence is revealed if a cock pheasant cries 

 a sudden, uneasy, short alarm-note, by the screaming 

 of jays, and by a particular blackbird note, which, 

 if it does not mean stoat or cat, certainly bespeaks 

 a fox. A crow may be seen suddenly swooping 

 angrily as he passes over a field a fox lurks there. 

 The hidden cause for the continuous uneasy spring- 

 ing of partridges is often a fox, or at least a cub 

 amusing himself by partridge hunting. 



A fox does not grow very old without learning how 



to take advantage of a snarer's catch. He learns to 



follow up runs and visit places where the 



Muzzled snarer has set his snares. And he often 



nv 51 



Snare P a y s t ^ ie penalty, his feet falling foul of the 

 noose. Hunting people commonly suppose 

 that traps steel gins are the chief cause of fox- 

 maiming, yet not once in a blue moon is a fox trapped. 

 But if too clever to be caught in a trap, he is not 

 clever enough to keep his feet out of the brass wire 

 of the simple snare. We came across a curious in- 

 stance showing how a fox may suffer from a snare. 

 Hounds found a fox which ran to ground almost at 

 once. Men were set to work to dig him out, and they 

 found he was merely skin and bone, and round his 



