THE LIVING WORLD. 
637 
enabled him to circumvent hound and hunter, while these were gazing stupidly 
into the darkness of the chasm. Another astute fox used to be hunted fre¬ 
quently and always vanished at one corner of the field. His success became a 
by-word and a reproach to every fox-hunter in the district, but no effort of 
theirs seemed able to discover the means by which the fox “ dematerialized” 
itself. In the end one of the hunters who had sacrificed his sport to play the 
spy, was after innumerable failures fully rewarded upon reaching the corner of 
the field. Reynard did not, as has been supposed, run along the topmost rail of 
the fence, but clambering up on it leaped many feet into the hollow of a tree, 
A FOX FAMILY. 
so distant that any suggestion of its affording a means of escape had been finally 
dismissed. Unfortunately what is sport for the hunter is death for the fox , so 
that the much less astute men proceeded to kill Reynard despite his cleverness. 
The fox displays the greatest cunning in outwitting those who would trap 
him, burrowing below the trap and thus springing it before he trifles with the 
bait. Unfortunately for the fox , the hunters have learned to set their traps 
upside down, so that as a dead fox never returns it will be some time before the 
foxes learn of the scheme arranged for their capture. In dealing with spring- 
guns the fox has exhibited equal fertility of resources, for it will either burrow 
at right angles to the bait, or gnaw the cord near the trigger, and then safely 
feast upon the bait. 
