MAIMMALS. 



167 



inhabit deep rocky cairns. Being fond of warmth, they have a 

 habit of lying on the top of a rock basking in the sun, as 

 we, on one occasion, had the pleasure of witnessing. Being very 

 acute in the sense of hearing, and lying as they do always close 

 to their holes, they are very difficult to see, unless one knows 

 exactly where they lie, and very carefully stalk up to the place. 

 St. John says their cry, that heard at night, is singularly harsh and 

 unpleasant ; he also adds that they were getting scarcer at that 

 time, or even previous to the date of 1846. 



Section CYNOIDEA. 

 Family CANID-ffi. 



Canis vulpes, L. Fox. 



Local Names. — Tod, Reynard. 



Despite the fierce and continuous war waged against the Fox in most 

 places, it holds its own much better than the other larger in- 

 digenous mammals. No doubt the species, like all the others, is 

 much indebted to the number of deer-forests for the firm hold it 

 still has in the hilly districts, but it rarely, now at least, descends 

 to the cultivated parts. 



That it holds its own in Sutherland and East Ross, the 

 following paragraph from the Inverness Courier of February 7, 

 1893, shows distinctly : — 



Foxes in the North. — Mr. Peter Mackintosh, keeper on 

 Mr. Flower's estate of Glencassley, Sutherland, is year by year 

 reducing the number of foxes on that estate. He killed or 

 captured 48 foxes of all ages, including four dens,^ in 1889, 

 3 foxes in 1890, 17 in 1891, and 6 in 1892, being a total of 107 

 foxes in four years. Besides foxes, he killed during the past 

 year a wild cat, which measured nearly five feet from nose to 

 point of tail, 1 pole cat, and a number of hawks, stoats, and 

 other vermin. In the course of the past year, Mr. Hugh 

 Macleod, keeper at Langwell, Strathoykel, on Lady Ross's estate, 

 killed 6 foxes, 4 dogs, and 2 vixens — all full-grown. For this 



^ I.e. the inliabitanti o/four ilens. 



