96 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
partly to kill off superfluous foxes, partly to educate 
the young hounds, and to teach the foxes to fear them 
and to make them leave cover easily. Four or five cubs 
in a litter are commonly seen. The distance which a 
fox will run is extraordinary. The following is a true 
account of one of the most remarkable runs ever known. 
The hounds were those of Mr. Tom Smith, master of 
the Hambledon Hunt. He was 
the man of whom another famous 
sportsman said that if he were _ 
a fox he should prefer to be 2 
hunted by a pack of hounds =3 
rather than by Tom Smith with 
a stick in his hand. The fox 
was found in a cover called MOUNTAIN-FOX 
Markwells, at one o’clock in the In hilly countries the fox becomes a powerful and destructive animal, killing not only game 
afternoon in December, near but lambs 
Petersfield. It crossed into Sussex, and ran into an earth in Grafham Hill a little before dark. 
The fox had gone twenty-seven miles. The hounds had forty miles to go back to kennel that 
night, and three only found their way home four days afterwards. Dog-foxes assemble in 
considerable numbers when a vixen is about in spring, and at all times common foxes are socia- 
ble creatures, though not actually living in societies. Sometimes as many as five or six are 
found in a single earth. Two years ago five foxes and a badger were found in one near 
Romford. They eat mice, beetles, rats, birds, game, poultry, and frogs. Their favourite food 
is rabbits. If there are plenty of these, they will not touch other game. They hunt along 
the railway-lines for dead birds killed by the telegraph-wires. In the New Forest they also 
go down to the shore and pick up dead fish. One in the writer’s possession was shot when 
carrying away a lamb from a sheepfold near the cliffs of Sidmouth, in Devon. The shepherd 
thought it was a marauding dog, and lay in wait with a gun. 
Photo by G. HW, Wilson & Co., Ltd.] 
Tue FENNECS 
Africa has a group of small foxes of its own. They have very large ears and dark eyes. 
Some of them remind us of the Maholis and other large-eyed lemuroids. Several are not 
AF Te, wip f, ‘more than 9g or Io inches long; they 
are a whitish-khaki colour, but the 
eyes are very dark and brilliant. 
The Common Fennec is found 
over the whole of Africa. Its favour- 
ite food is dates and any sweet fruit, 
but it is also fond of eggs, and will 
eat mice and insects. It is probably 
the original hero of the story of the 
fox and the grapes. The large-eared 
fennec, which is sometimes called the 
Sitver Fox, is found from the Cape 
to as far north as Abyssinia, It is 
aes 7 ae 23 inches long, and lives mainly on 
LEICESTERSHIRE FOX . insects and fruit. 
