Fox signs 
Intestines 
of 
Partridge 
killed by 
. Fox 
Fox digs out 
a Mouse 
^/r/fv 
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 led me to infer that it was a 
female. 
In the middle of my largest clearing, within a 
few rods 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 Part¬ 
ridge. There were no feathers, bones or other fragments 
whatever. The intestines were frozen solid. I opened the 
coecum and found it filled with unmistakable Grouse excre¬ 
ment, quite fresh and having the usual pungent smell. The 
Fox had come from the Hill. Consequently I was following 
the back track. I traced it step by step back across the 
east spur 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 
not even a single feather and the testimony of that blank 
sheet of soft snow was conclusive. The Fox had visited a 
large burrow on my hillside into which a Rabbit track led 
and had dug out a little sand then had peeped 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 
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