A SENTIMENTALIST ON FOXES 61 
below the summit. Those, too, who walked on the 
sands beneath the cliff sometimes saw his tracks— 
the footprints of a three-legged fox. Doubtless he 
had modified his way of life, and subsisted partly 
on small crabs and anything eatable the sea cast 
up on the beach, and for the rest on voles and 
other small deer obtainable near the cliff. At all 
events he was never met with at any distance 
from the sea, and was in no danger from the Hunt, 
as he was always close to his fortress in the pre- 
cipitous cliff. 
One day a farmer, the tenant of the land at 
that spot, who was out with his gun and walking 
quickly on the narrow path in the larch wood 
close to the cliff, looking out for rabbits, came face 
to face with the three-legged fox. He stopped 
short, and so did the fox, and the gun was brought 
to the shoulder and the finger to the trigger, for it 
is a fact that foxes are shot in England by farmers 
when they are too numerous, and in any case here 
was a useless animal for hunting purposes, since he 
had but three legs. But before the finger touched 
the trigger, it came into the man’s mind that this 
animal had done him no harm, and he said, “ Why 
should I kill him? No, Ill let him keep his life,” 
and so the fox escaped again. 
More was heard from time to time about the 
three-legged fox, and that went on until quite 
recently—about four years ago, I was told. If we 
may suppose the fox to have been two or three 
years old when caught in a trap, and that he 
