CHAPTER II 



ALONG THE HIGHWAY OF THE POX 



jITH only half a chance 

 our smaller wild animals 

 — the fox, the mink, the 

 'coon, the 'possum, the 

 rabbit — would thrive 

 and be happy forever on 

 the very edges of the 

 towns and cities. Instead o£ a hindrance, houses 

 and farms, roads and railways are a help to the 

 wild animals, affording them food and shelter as 

 their natural conditions never could. So, at least, 

 it seems ; for here on Mullein Hill, hardly twenty 

 miles from the heart of Boston, there are more wild 

 animals than I know what to do with — just as if 

 the city of Boston were a big skunk farm or fox 

 farm, from which the countryside all around (par- 

 ticularly my countryside) were being continually 

 restocked. 



But then, if I seem to have more foxes than a 

 man of chickens needs to have, it is no wonder, liv- 

 ing as I do on a main traveled road in Foxland, a 

 road that begins off in the granite ledges this side 

 of Boston, no one knows where, and, branching, 



