THE FOX. 



T HAVE already spoken of the fox at some length, 

 but it will take a chapter by itself to do half justice 

 to his portrait. 



He furnishes, perhaps, the only instance that can be 

 cited of a fur-bearing animal that not only holds its 

 own, but that actually increases in the face of the 

 means that are used for its extermination. The beaver, 

 for instance, was gone before the earliest settlers could 

 get a sight of him ; and even the mink and marten are 

 now only rarely seen, or not seen at all, in places where 

 they were once abundant. 



But the fox has survived civilization, and in some 

 localities is no doubt more abundant now than in the 

 time of the Revolution. For half a century at least he 

 has been almost the only prize, in the way of fur, that 

 was to be found on our mountains, and he has been 

 hunted and trapped and waylaid, sought for as game 

 and pursued in enmity, taken by fair means and by 

 foul, and yet there seems not the slightest danger of 

 the species becoming extinct. 



One would think that a single hound in a neighbor- 

 hood, filling the mountains with his bayings, and leav- 



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