330 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



vixen Foxes have to get food for their young, and during that 

 period the gamekeeper, having orders to preserve Foxes and 

 Pheasants — a by no means impossible combination — should 

 supply the Foxes with rabbits and rooks. If this be done, birds 

 will rarely be touched. For their own eating, an old Fox of 

 either sex will rarely, if ever, touch a sitting hen; though, if 

 proper food be not provided, the vixen will sometimes catch up a 

 hen Pheasant from her nest for the sake of her young. By the 

 time the cubs are big enough to earn their own living, the 

 Pheasants will have taken to roost in trees, and be out of the 

 way of Foxes. Still, I do not say that where Pheasants abound 

 a few will not fall a prey to Foxes, especially when there is a 

 dearth of rabbits. Those who are curious in such matters should 

 take the opportunity afforded by a moonlight night, of watching 

 the vixen capturing rabbits for her family. It is seldom that 

 she pounces upon them from some ambush, nor does she more 

 often attempt to run one down. On the contrary, she shows 

 herself in good time, that her prospective prey may have ample 

 opportunity of seeing her. On her first appearance, some of the 

 rabbits will probably scuttle away for some distance, before 

 sitting on their hind legs to have another look ; others will squat 

 close to the ground. Judging by the vixen's plans— the dog 

 seldom or never does any foraging, except for himself — one would 

 think that she had never seen the rabbits. She will roll on her 

 back, play with her brush, trot in a circle, and regularly cheat 

 the bunnies into the belief that she has no design upon them. 

 When they have become reassured and begun to feed again, she 

 is among them with a bound, and secures enough for herself and 

 family. She is very fond of field mice, and will dig out and eat 

 quantities of them, in this respect rendering good service to the 

 farmers. The Hedgehog also falls a prey to the Fox, as it does 

 to the Badger, and indeed, very little comes amiss to this mid- 

 night marauder. In default of fresh food a Fox will devour dead 

 fish cast up or left on the shore, and other carrion, and will 

 scratch on a dunghill for any refuse animal-matter that may be 

 buried there. One fine October morning, while out Pheasant- 

 shooting, I came out of a covert into a grass-field, in one corner 

 of which stood a large heap of manure. On the top of this heap 

 was lying at full length a fine old dog-Fox, dead, but not stiff. 

 He had evidently picked up some poisonous substance which 





