Vf/fi 
y 
"Bamsdale" 
may have blown them there. Some of the branches of this 
Tracks and 
tree were, however, bent down to within two feet of the 
hj^Jhgs °f 
snow. Hence it is possible that the Fox may have sprung 
Foxes 
up and seized the Jay on its roost. I followed all the 
tracks that led into the opening a considerable distance 
back but did not find a single feather or drop of blood 
along any of them. 
This afternoon’s experience convinced me that our 
Fox never gallops or lopes unless when startled or pursued. 
Indeed every track that I saw was that of a walking or 
<sr-> 
trotting Fox. The normal track is like this: 
suggesting a pacing gait but occasionally the foot-prints 
alternate thus:^ & & like those of a Oat 
from which they can be distinguished only by the larger 
size of the Fox’s feet. Neither the Fox nor the Oat ever 
dots the snow in a perfectly straight line. Both usually 
(and I think the Cat invariably) put down the hind foot 
exactly or approximately so in the footprint of the fore 
foot but the Fox sometimes departs from this rule as I noted 
a few days since. 
Partridge 
In Pratt's meadow fully thirty yards from any cover 
whatever I fougid a hole in the snow where a Partridge had 
roosting in 
apparently roosted under the si ight crust. There was one 
ti^^ snow 
small neat hole where she had entered it, probably flying 
down to it with great force, and another larger hole where 
U P 
she had come out bursting/through the crust and scattering 
broken pieces of it about. There was only one dropping 
in the burrow. A Fox track led by the spot within 25 feeti 
IH 
