AMERICAN CROSS FOX. 47 



In our }outh we had opportunities whilst residing in the northern part 

 of the State of New York, of acquiring some knowledge of the habits of 

 the Fox, and many other animals, which then were abundant around us. 



Within a few miles dwelt several neighbours who vied with each other 

 in destroying foxes, and other predacious animals, and who kept a strict 

 account of the number they captured or killed each season. As trappers, 

 most of our neighbours were rather unsuccessful — the wary foxes, espe- 

 cially, seemed very soon, as om- western hunters would say, to be " up to 

 trap." Shooting them by star-light, from behind a hay-stack in the fields, 

 when they had for sometime been baited and the snow covered the 

 ground so that food was eagerly sought after by them, answered pretty 

 well at first, but after a few had been shot at, the whole tribe of foxes 

 — red, gray, cross, and black — appeared to be aware that safety was no 

 longer to be expected in the vicinity of hay-stacks, and they all gave the 

 latter a wde berth. 



With the assistance of dogs, pick-axes, and spades, our friends were far 

 more successful, and we think might have been considered adepts. We 

 were invited to join them, which we did on a few occasions, but finding 

 that our ideas of sport did not accord precisely with theirs, we gradually 

 withdrew from this club of primitive fox-hunters. Each of these sports- 

 men was guided by his own " rules and regulations "' in the " chase ; " 

 the horse was not brought into the field, nor do we remember any scarlet 

 coats. Each hunter proceeded in the direction that to him seemed best — 

 what he killed he kept — and he always took the shortest possible method 

 he could devise, to obtain the fox's skin. He seldom carried a gun, but in 

 lieu of it, on his shoulder was a pick-axe and a spade, and in his pocket 

 a tinder box and steel. 



A half-hound, being a stronger and swifter dog than the thorough bred, 

 accompanied him, the true foxhound being too slow, and too noisy for his 

 purpose ; we remember one of these half-bred dogs, which was of great 

 size and extraordinary fieetness ; it was said to have a cross of the grey- 

 hound. 



In the fresh-fallen and deep snows of mid- winter, the hunters were most 

 successful. During these severe snow storms, the ruffed grouse, (Tetrao 

 umbellus,) called in our Eastern States the partridge, is often snowed up 

 and covered over ; or sometimes plunges from on wing into the soft sno-w, 

 where it remains concealed for a day or two. The fox occasionally sur- 

 prises these birds, and as he is usually stimulated at this inclement season 

 by the gnawings of hunger, he is compelled to seek for food by day as 



