108 NATURE AND WOODCRAFT. 



little life on the mountains, the foxes prove 

 very destructive in winter. When other 

 supplies fail, and reynard is denied the barn- 

 yard, he has recourse to the small black-faced 

 sheep. These, from their small size, are not- 

 difficult to overcome, especially if dog and 

 vixen hunt in company ; and it is evident, from 

 their shambles, that they find mountain mutton 

 very toothsome. It is this penchant that makes 

 1he hill farmer so persistent an enemy of the 

 Fox. He traps it, shoots it, and when he can 

 safely do so, lays poison in its paths. 



One of my amusements in long-gone school 

 vacations was to lie upon a green ledge of the 

 crags armed with an ancient flintlock, and from 

 this point of vantage deal death to the cubs as 

 they came out to play at the mouth of their 

 den. The destruction of the young is the 

 farmer's method of keeping the species within 

 bounds, and is the only practicable one. 



A few breeding sites supply a wide tract of 

 country ; and these, for the most part, are in 

 quite inaccessible fastnesses. There the cubs 

 stay through the summer until early autumn, 

 being catered for in the meantime in the most 

 assiduous manner. The mouth of their earth is 



