ON SURREY HILLS. 



Fuchs — which as naturalists we may as well have 

 done with for good and all ; the other the actual fox, 

 fortunately the only representative of the wild dog 

 existent in England. That he is clever we must 

 own ; impudent and daring we know him to be ; 

 but these latter qualities have been developed by the 

 protection that has been given him for generations. 

 I make this statement fearlessly, having verified it 

 by long observation. I lay no claim to be a scientist, 

 being simply a workman, one of the rank and file ; 

 none, however, has better opportunities for getting 

 at the real facts than a working man who happens 

 to have natural history on the brain. The fox is 

 frequently outwitted to his cost, a proof that he is 

 not so clever as he is popularly supposed to be. 



I will give one illustration of his manoeuvring well 

 known to myself in a locality where hares were 

 numerous. No hare, not even when life is at stake, 

 will go through an opening which has been defiled 

 by the passage of a fox. When the latter has 

 designs on the hare, he will pass through the crea- 

 ture's mews. One hare-preserve familiar to me was 

 bounded towards the road by a high steep bank, 

 topped by a four- feet fence. There were several 



