LITTLE BEASTS OF FIELD AND WOOD 



World. His fur is longer and more brightly- 

 coloured, and his nose less sharply pointed. 

 Otherwise there seems to be no very striking 

 difference. 



My first actual experience with foxes occurred 

 when I was perhaps a dozen years old. I was 

 climbing a thickly-wooded knoll one evening 

 about sunset, when, on coming out into an 

 opening among the young pines, I caught sight 

 of a little yellowish-gray beast as it bolted down 

 into the mouth of a newly made burrow. Sup- 

 posing it to be a woodchuck or perhaps a 

 rabbit, I let fly an arrow after it, and hurried 

 toward the hole, and then stopped short in my 

 tracks for very fear, because of a cry that issued 

 from the shadow of the trees to one side. I 

 had always been used to hearing the barking 

 of foxes in the distance on still nights in the 

 winter, but this was of so utterly different a 

 character that I failed to associate the two sounds 

 in the least. A harsh, vibrating screech, rising 



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