7 1 00 Quadrupeds, 



dog-fox there can be no doubt; whether such would have been also 

 the case had the vixen been alive I cannot say, though I have heard 

 it said both parents do assist each other in this labour of love. I may 

 here add a word on the nature of the food on which foxes feed, and of 

 this there is scarcely any kind of which they will not thankfully par- 

 take, when a little pressed by hunger, in Irosty and bad weather, — - 

 poultry, game, rats, rooks, a dead (skinned) sheep or lamb ; for, except 

 in the mountainous districts of Scotland and Wales and some parts of 

 the North of England, where rabbits and other food are not to be had, 

 I deny that foxes kill sheep or lambs, though such is, I am aware, 

 often ignorantly laid to their charge, and in many instances, after due 

 inquiry, I have succeeded in proving to those who insisted on the 

 contrary how totally unfounded is this accusation. A dead lamb just 

 born may occasionally be taken, but not a lively and well-to-do one, 

 which, if found to have been killed, has been destroyed by some dog, 

 or, if missed, is found afterwards starved to death in a drain, or hung 

 fast in a bramble, or lost in some neighbouring plantation or copse. 

 A part of a dead horse or cow, or almost any kind of garbage, is all 

 welcomed where there are young ones, but nothing is more kindly 

 taken to by foxes than rats, of which I have often sent them dozens 

 at a time, after the slaughter occasioned by taking down a corn-rick, 

 when I thought the old vixen was somewhat pressed to supply her 

 young, and the next day the dead rats were sure to have all disap- 

 peared. During the winter season, when snow is on the ground, it is 

 a curious sight to trace the foxes along the sides of a small trout- 

 stream, where rats abound ; near this place, when the waters are some- 

 what out and the rats are driven from their holes, it is not an unusual 

 thing to shoot fifty or sixty in the course of a few hours. In following 

 the course of this little stream the marks appear in every direction 

 in the snow where the foxes have passed and re-passed night after 

 night in search of the rats and moor-hens, and many places show 

 where a fox has captured a rat while it was silting at the edge of the 

 water, little thinking of the stealthy approach of the foe behind it. 



Amongst the almost universal food foxes partake of 1 was not till 

 lately aware of their feeding on fish, which it may be thought difficult 

 for them to catch ; but it is a well known fact that the polecat, a 

 smaller if not less active animal than the fox, is in the habit of sup- 

 plying itself with eels for winter consumption, deposited in some safe 

 hole or place near its retreat, and, singular to say, these unfortunate 

 eels are not quite deprived of life before being stowed away, but are 

 only so far nipped or bitten in the neck or back of the head as to pre- 



