266 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



In Scotland the fox holds the first place among " vermin." 

 I do not think that a mountain-fox would live long before a 

 pack of regular fox-hounds, but in his own country he is well 

 able to take care of himself He is a handsome powerful 

 fellow ; and in size and strength more like a wolf than a 

 Lowland fox, and well he may be, since his food consists of 

 mutton and lamb, grouse and venison. His stronghold is 

 under some huge cairn, or among the fragments that strew 

 the bottom of some rocky precipice, perhaps three thousand 

 feet above the sea. In those mountain solitudes he does not 

 confine his depredations to the night ; I have often encountered 

 him in broad daylight ; and through my deer-glass have watched 

 his manner of hunting the ptarmigan, which is not so neat, but 

 appears quite as successful, as the tactics of the cat. By an 

 unobservant eye, the track of a fox is easily mistaken for that 

 of a dog. The print is somewhat rounder, but the chief 

 difference is the superior neatness of the impression, and the 

 exactness of the steps, the hind-foot just covering the print of 

 the fore-foot. The fox makes free with a great variety of game, 

 and the demands of his nursery require a plentiful supply.'' In 

 the hills he lives on lambs, sheep, grouse, and ptarmigan ; in 

 the low country, the staple of his prey is rabbits, where these 

 are plentiful ; but nothing comes amiss to him, from the field- 

 mouse upwards. The most wary birds, the wood-pigeon and 

 the wild duck, do not escape him, and he destroys a considerable 

 number of the young of the roe. The honey of the wild 

 bee is one of his favourite delicacies ; and vermin-trappers have 

 found no bait more effective to lure him than a piece of honey- 

 comb. His nose is very fine, and he detects the taint of human 

 footstep or hand for days after it has been communicated. 

 Several ways are tried for evading his suspicions. Some 

 trappers place three or four traps in a circle, and leave them 

 well covered for some days without any bait ; and at the end 

 of that time, when all taint must have left the traps, they place 

 a bait in the centre. Another way is to place the traps in 

 shallow water, and a bait on some bank where he cannot reach 

 it without running a good chance of treading on them. Even 

 when the enemy is in the trap, the victory is not won : and if 



^ The fox is fond of the sea-shore, where it feeds on dead fish, etc. , thrown up by the 

 sea. It manages to catch old wild ducks and other birds. It also kills young roe, larabg, 

 and cats.— C, St. J. 



