12 Ways of Wood Folk. 



night, discovers by Iter keen nose that a flock of hens 

 has been straying near the woods, she goes next 

 day and hides herself there, lying motionless for 

 hours at a stretch in a clump of dead grass or berry 

 bushes, till the flock comes near enough for a rush. 

 Then she hurls herself among them, and in the con- 

 fusion seizes one by the neck, throws it by a quick 

 twist across her shoulders, and is gone before the 

 stupid hens find out what it is all about. 



But when a fox finds an old hen or turkey straying 

 about with a brood of chicks, then the tactics are 

 altogether different. Creeping up like a cat, the fox 

 watches an opportunity to seize a chick out of sight 

 of the mother bird. That done, he withdraws, silent 

 as a shadow, his grip on the chick's neck preventing 

 any outcry. Hiding his game at a distance, he creeps 

 back to capture another in the same way ; and so on 

 till he has enough, or till he is discovered, or some 

 half-strangled chick finds breath enough for a squawk. 

 A hen or turkey knows the danger by instinct, and 

 hurries her brood into the open at the first suspicion 

 that a fox is watching. 



A farmer, whom I know well, first told me how a 

 fox manages to carry a number of chicks at once. 

 He heard a clamor from a hen-turkey and her brood 

 one day, and ran to a wood path in time to see a 

 vixen make off with a turkey chick scarcely larger 



