634 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May 17, 1913 
intermediate between the cattle and the sheep is 
not founded on fact. The truth is that the 
nearest living relative of the muskox appears 
to be the American bison, though in certain 
respects—especially in the development of its 
horns—it resembles the Cape buffalo. 
An extremely interesting point about this 
species is that although it has been supposed 
that it could not endure the climate of temperate 
regions, it nevertheless seems to be doing well 
in captivity in the park of the New York 
Zoological Society, where six specimens are 
now on exhibition. One of these is a female, now 
four years old; the other five, four males and 
one female, which are three years old. It is 
hoped that the muskoxen may breed in cap¬ 
tivity. If this should happen it would be a 
fact of extraordinary interest. 
N ot every kind of hunting is conducted in as 
many various ways as is fox hunting. The 
society man and woman in fashionable at¬ 
tire, astride their well-bred hunters, follow the 
hounds o'er hill and dale, across brooks and 
ditches, over walls and fences, deeming the sport 
as great a social function as ball or reception. 
The lover of fox hunting usually hunts in 
smaller parties, making not so much a horse 
race of the hunt as do the society people, but 
more of the hounds’ work and music. He hunts 
sometimes at night, the music in the stillness 
being at its best. The actual catching of a fox 
is to him not important; in fact, if foxes are 
not plentiful, he thinks: 
The fox that runs and gets away 
May furnish sport some other day. 
The New England style of fox hunting in 
most common practice is for one or more hunt¬ 
ers to follow the hound or hounds on foot, and 
when a fox is started to watch in some likely 
place and kill with coarse shot as he runs by. 
If he can find a fox’s track not too old, he will 
follow it all day if necessary, and one shot 
usually is enough. The fox will grow more and 
more careless if repeatedly disturbed in his ef- 
The question of the extermination of the 
muskoxen, a form as unique as is the vanishing 
prong-horn antelope, merits careful considera¬ 
tion by the only government that can take up 
the matter—the Dominion of Canada. The 
species ought to be rigidly protected by law. 
and traffic in the skin of the muskoxen should 
either be absolutely forbidden, or so heavily 
penalized as to make it unprofitable. 
Naturalists and big game hunters are to be 
congratulated on the appearance of this most in¬ 
teresting contribution to the literature of one 
of America’s most peculiar mammals. The 
splendid paper, gotten out in the sumptuous 
style of all the productions of the American 
Museum of Natural History, is worthy of the 
great reputation of its author, and of the in¬ 
stitution which publishes it. 
forts to get some sleep, and is likely to ex¬ 
pose himself fatally. 
Another kind of old-timer, instead of rifle 
will take with him a spade, or probably trust 
to borrowing one at a nearby farmhouse, and 
dig out the fox he has tracked to his burrow or 
den. One of my neighbors last winter got a 
fine fox in this way, and found evidence of his 
having eaten four ruffed grouse the night before. 
Yet another method practiced largely in the 
Middle West is to get up fox drives, usually 
during February or March. Notice is given in 
the local paper or by bills posted in conspicu¬ 
ous places that on a certain day a fox drive will 
take place, naming hour of starting, boundaries 
and field in which round-up is to take place. 
In the center of this field a few sticks of wood 
or some brush is placed, barely enough for a 
fox to hide in, and marked by a flag. The 
hunters, farmers for miles around and city 
lovers of excitement, gather at the boundary 
nearest to them and walk slowly in a direct 
line for the round-up, striking bushes, kicking 
brush piles, blowing horns, etc., to drive any 
fox unlucky enough to be within the boundaries 
toward the field selected for the finish of the 
hunt. Sometimes it is all for naught, and again 
from one to four foxes are driven to cover 
under the flag, surrounded by a wall of men 
two to four deep. Often the foxes are auc¬ 
tioned off to the highest bidders, the money pay¬ 
ing for notices, or going to some worthy charity. 
No shooting is permitted, and dogs are tabooed 
except on chain and led by the owner. At times 
many rabbits and other game are seen, and the 
whole occasion is one of reunion, jollity and en¬ 
joyment to all. 
Not strictly in accord with the heading of 
this article, but more lucrative to its devotees 
as well as more serious to the fox population, 
are two other methods of getting them and their 
valuable skins—i. e., trapping and snaring. 
Catching them in steel traps is quite an art, 
and requires more than casual knowledge of 
their habits to be successful, while the use of 
snares demands little skill, and knowledge only 
of best places to set them. A noose is made of 
fine, pliant copper wire, three or four strands, 
and hung where Sir Reynard is likely to pass, 
and when once he feels “the halter draw,” he 
is more secure than a dog on chain. Much 
cruelty is occasioned by this method, the snares 
costing so little as compared with traps, that 
they are set in far larger numbers and over a 
greater territory, thus not being attended so 
frequently, and some are quite forgotten, while 
others are carelessly left at the end of the sea¬ 
son to hold the unlucky victim until starvation 
ends his agony. Foxes are found in these snares 
with the skin nearly cut through, yet alive. The 
snarer usually drags behind him the carcass of 
some animal, a rabbit or muskrat from which 
the skin has been taken, when setting and at¬ 
tending his snares, and every fox that crosses 
this trail is likely to have enough curiosity to 
follow it. 
IMany dogs are caught in these snares, some 
to starve, while others are found by their own¬ 
ers and liberated. Some men have regretted 
their attempts to do kindness to a strange dog 
fast and angry in a copper wire snare. This 
winter a farmer missed his dog, and suspecting 
he might have been caught in a snare, hunted 
his woods over and found him as expected. 
He found also twenty-five snares and learned 
they had been set by a man from Massachusetts, 
who had them set for thirty miles from home 
in several directions, and some of the more dis¬ 
tant ones attended by local trappers and boys 
on shares. 
The first two classes of fox hunters named 
above, the fashionable set and lover of foxhound 
music, have the greatest contempt for the man 
who can descend so low as to kill a fox in 
cold blood with a shotgun, but then as Mark 
Twain remarked, “If it were not for a differ¬ 
ence of opinion, there would be no horse racing.” 
The lover of shooting over dogs, whether 
his favorite game is the speedy, bustling quail, 
the booming, startling ruffed grouse, whistling 
woodcock or bounding rabbit, may contemplate 
with equanimity the enhancing values of fox 
skins and activity of the classes above described, 
for the sly reynard hunts when the ground is 
covered with snow to appease his or her hunger, 
and fully as hard in May and June when our 
game birds are nesting to satisfy the hunger of 
themselves and several whelps as well. Many 
a quail, grouse and rabbit is lifted from its nest 
of eggs or young to make a reynard’s breakfast. 
The Many Phases of Taking Foxes 
By E. P. ROBINSON 
GATHERING FOR AN OHIO FOX HUNT. 
