26 



FARM VERMIN, HELPFUL AND HURTFUL. 



yells and barking collies he has been known to clear a 

 whole parish of out-sitting ducks and hens. Near the 

 coast he is particularly partial to decayed or rotten fish, 

 •constantly visiting the locality, night by night, as long as 

 this savoury viand is procurable ; nor will he disdain to 

 take a light and salutary repast from the dangling scare- 

 crow gibbeted above newly-sown or ripening corn. Perhaps 

 one of the worst charges we have heard brought against him 

 is that of cannibalism — a fact w^e have had the opportunity 

 of verifying. In a grass field in the parish in which we lived 

 there was a big stack of thorns, purposely contrived as a 

 retreat and refuge for foxes. Here two vixens laid up, and 

 in summer evenings we have watched the pretty gambols of 

 the cubs. One day the tenant brought word that the foxes 

 had been quarrelling, that the vixen had killed a cub, and 

 that subsequently the rest had dined off it, of all wliich sad 

 scene he had been an eye-witness. On examining the place 

 we found it was a too-true tale, and the only relic left was 

 the fresh skin of the unlucky cub, neatly turned inside out, 

 like a glove, and picked clean of every particle of flesh, a 

 certain indication that a fox — and a fox only — was the 

 author of the deed. 



Hedgehogs, too, form part of his diet ; the skin, as in the 

 former case, being invariably turned inside out. When 

 flocks are folded on turnips in winter, foxes will sometimes 

 take advantage of the helpless condition of an overcast 

 sheep, and inflict terrible mutilation and death. Such out- 

 rages, however, we consider quite exceptional, and induced 

 hy scarcity of natural food, or it is not improbably the 

 work of some old rascal w^ho, like the flesh-eating parrot of 

 New Zealand, has developed a taste for fresh mutton or 

 kidney fat. 



* I once saw a striking instance of this. A sheep shearing was proceeding in the 

 fold of a mountain farm, when a vixen fox suddenly sprang over the wall and im- 

 mediately made off with a gamecock, It was broad daylight, there were men and 

 dogs about, and the fold was in a general bustle.— Editor. 



