1892
Feb. 5
(no2)
Concord, Massachusetts.
Ball's Hill.
Mass.
Concord. - Once in about fifty yards, on the average,
the animal had voided a few drops of yellowish
or pale orange urine, usually on the top of a slight
mound but sometimes on a level surface. This
leads me to infer that it was a female.
[margin]Fox signs.[/margin]
  In the middle of my largest clearing, within
a few yards of my brush heap, the Fox had
stopped and trampled down the snow over a space
of perhaps a yard square. On this trampled place
lay most of the intestines of a Partridge. There
were no feathers, bones or other fragments whatever.
The intestines were frozen solid. I opened the coecum
and found it filled with unmistakeable Grouse
excrement, quite fresh & having the usual pungent
smell. The Fox had come from the Hill. Consequently
I was following the bank track. I traced it step
by step back across the east span of the hill
and out over Holden's meadow to the river where
it had apparently crossed the ice from the
Bedford side. Where had it killed the Partridge?
Certainly not on my land for I found no trace
of a struggle anywhere nor even a single feather
and the testimony of that blank sheet of soft 
snow was conclusive. The Fox had visited a large
furrow on my hillside into which a Rabbit track
led and had dug out a little sand then had
jumped into a smaller burrow near. After this
it descended the hill and in a small opening
about 100 yards before it came to the place where
the Grouse entrails lay had dug down through
the snow and captured a mouse (Arvicola)
[margin]Intestines of
Partridge
killed by
Fox[/margin]
[margin]Fox digs
out a 
Mouse[/margin]