FOX AND BADGER, 



25 



horseman ever comes. Man in those regions has no use for 

 him, and will not tolerate his too-frequent depredations^ 

 which are resented in proportion to his utter uselessness. 

 In Scotland generally he is " King of the vermin/'' and 

 nothing escapes him — weakly sheep, lambs, ptarmigan, 

 grouse, hares, rabbits, game, wild fowl generally, and 

 young roe ; such smaller deer, too, as rats, mice, and moles. 

 He robs the nests of the wild bee for the honey of which he 

 is inordinately fond — a bait which has often lured him to 

 destruction. 



In England, where food is not so readily procurable 

 as in North Britain, foxes feed largely on leverets and 

 rabbits. They are deadly foes to brooding pheasants 

 and partridges, both slaying the sitting bird and devour- 

 ing her eggs. Only this year (1S94) we have learnt of the 

 fearful havoc and mischief done in one night by a fox 

 which had succeeded in evading the sleepy watcher, among 

 the young coop-reared pheasants of a neighbouring preserve, 

 scores of young birds having been destroyed out of what 

 appeared to have been pure cussedness/' as most had been 

 left strewn about the ground. When pressed by hunger the 

 fox will not disdain frogs, snails, and worms, and even 

 the acrid toad, and we have sometimes found the droppings 

 full of the wing-cases of beetles. An old farmer who began 

 life as a keeper, and had lived much of his time near a fox- 

 covert, recently told us that foxes are very fond, in the 

 spring, of the droppings of young lambs, as long as they are 

 sucking the ewes, and will resort constantly to the fields 

 where these can be got. 



On this side the Border the fox is pre-eminently 

 distinguished as the worst enemy of the poultry yard, and. 

 presuming on long immunity, so bold does he become 

 during the season his family are dependent on him, that he 

 will carry off the unwary duck or hen in broad daylight 

 and in the most public manner, regardless of shouts and 



