270 THE AMERICAN FOX. 



below the edge there was a kind of break in the strata of stone, forming a kind of step about a 

 foot in width. By means of his claws the Fox let himself down upon this step, and then dis- 

 appeared in a hollow which was invisible from above. 



A man was lowered by ropes to the spot, and found that there was a wide fissure in the 

 rock, to which the stony step formed an entrance. On searching the cavern, it was found to 

 have another and an easy outlet upon the level ground above. The Fox, however, never used 

 this entrance when the hounds were on his trail, but cut off the scent by scrambling over the 

 cliff, and then emerging at the other outlet without danger of discovery. 



Mr. C. W. Webber narrates an equally curious instance of the cunning of a Fox in escap- 

 ing from Ms pursuers : 



" There was a certain briary old field of great extent, near the middle of which we could, 

 on any morning of the year, start a gray Fox. After a chase of an hour or so, just enough to 

 blow the dogs and horses well, we invariably lost the Fox at the same spot, the fence-corner of 

 a large plantation, which opened into a heavy forest on one side of this old field. The fre- 

 quency and certainty of this event became the standing joke of the country. Fox-hunters 

 from other neighborhoods would bring their pack for miles, to have a run out of this mys- 

 terious Fox, in the hope of clearing up the mystery. But no. They were all baffled alike. 

 We often examined the ground critically, to find out, if possible, the mode of escape, but 

 could discover nothing that in any way accounted for it, or suggested any theory in regard to 

 it. That it did not fly was very sure ; that it must escape along the fence in some way was 

 equally so. My first idea was, that the animal, as is very common, had climbed upon the top 

 rail of the fence, and walked along it to such a distance, before leaping off, that the dogs were 

 entirely thrown out. I accordingly followed the fence with the whole pack about me, clear 

 round the plantation, but without striking the trail again, or making any discovery. 



" The affair now became quite serious. The reputation of our hounds was suffering ; and, 

 besides, I found they were really losing confidence in themselves, and woidd not run with half 

 the staunch eagerness which had before characterized them. The joke of being regularly 

 baffled had been so often repeated that they now came to consider it a settled thing that they 

 were never to take another Fox again, and were disposed to give up in despair. Some of the 

 neighbors had grown superstitious about it, and vowed that this must be a weir Fox, who 

 could make himself invisible when he pleased. 



' ' At last I determined to watch at the fence-corner, and see what became of the Fox. 

 Within about the usual time I heard him heading towards the mysterious corner, as the voices 

 of the pack clearly indicated. I almost held my breath in my concealment, while I watched 

 for the appearance of this extraordinary creature. In a little while the Fox made his appear- 

 ance, coming on at quite a leisurely pace, a little in advance of the pack. When he reached 

 the corner, he climbed in a most unhiirried and deliberate way to the top rail of the fence, and 

 then walked along it, balancing himself as carefully as a rope-dancer. He proceeded down 

 the side of the fence next to the forest in which I was concealed. 



' ' I followed cautiously, so as to keep him in view. Before he had thus proceeded more 

 than two hundred yards, the hounds came up to the corner, and he very deliberately paused 

 and looked back for a moment, then he hurried along the fence some paces farther, and when 

 he came opposite a dead but leaning tree which stood inside the fence, some twelve or sixteen 

 feet distant, he stooped, made a high and long bound to a knot upon the side of its trunk, up 

 which he ran, and entered a hollow in the top where it had been broken off, nearly thirty feet 

 from the ground, in some storm. I respected the astuteness of the trick too much to betray 

 its author, since I was now personally satisfied ; and he continued for a long time, while I 

 kept his secret, to be the wonder and the topic of neighboring Fox-hunters, until at last one of 

 them happened to take the same idea into his head, and found out the mystery. He avenged 

 himself by cutting down the tree, and capturing the smart Fox. 



"The tree stood at such a distance from the fence that no one of us who had examined 

 the ground ever dreamed of the possibility that the Fox would leap to it ; it seemed a physical 

 impossibility, but practice and the convenient knot had enabled cunning Reynard to overcome 

 it with assured ease." 



