When it appeared in print I saw a 
comment written by a man who said 
he was a fox hunter and he compared 
my fox to the man’s tame oyster that 
followed him up and down stairs. 
The gray fox is a beautiful animai 
and running ahead of hounds is the 
most graceful of any living thing and 
he will run as fast and as long as the 
fellow with the dirty red coat. I like 
Don Cameron Shafer although I have 
never met him. If he will go into the 
apple orchard, dig a hole eighteen 
inches deep and four feet across, fill 
it with dry buckwheat chaff (this will 
not clog the trap) bait with cracklings. 
(Everything likes salt.) Bury the bait 
at the bottom and make him dig for 
it. Scatter a few pieces outside. 
When he finds it once he will come 
again. Bait him a few times and he 
will get reckless. Then set your trap. 
Fasten the trap to a brush so he can 
go. A lght trap will hold him but 
it must have a double spring, put some 
bait under the trap and you are sure . 
to get him. And you follow up the 
trail and find him caught and held by 
a fence or snag with his ears laid back, 
crouched low, eyes half shut, hoping 
against hope that you will pass him 
by and you shoot him or club him to 
death. I have done such things in the 
long ago but never again. 
E. A. VICKROY, 
Cleveland, Ohio. 
NORTHERN FOX HUNTING 
AGAIN 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
N looking over my October copy, I 
notice that one of your southern 
readers, Mr. B. T. Jones of Alabama, 
registers a protest to our northern fox 
hunting methods. 
I am not as old a fox hunter as this 
gentleman, but have hunted foxes more 
or less since along in the late nineties, 
and I was particularly fortunate in 
having for a friend and instructor one 
of the most famous of old-time fox 
hunters to be found in this part of the 
country. 
Here in the Mohawk Valley of the 
old Empire State we have a breed of 
foxes that would give the southern 
dogs a chase they would long remem- 
ber, and it would not even be a@ chase 
after an old dog-fox got thoroughly 
warmed up and started for the next 
county. 
A southern dog or a pack of them 
would have no more chance of catch- 
ing one of our foxes, than the southern 
horses and riders would have in follow- 
ing our dogs through the rough coun- 
try we have to hunt over. 
If Mr. Jones could go out with me 
some fine morning and see one of our 
big red fellows in action, he would 
then understand that the foxes we 
have here, and also throughout the 
New England States, are quite differ- 
ent from the southern foxes. In his 
letter he writes: ‘They even select 
their stands in order to get a good 
shot.” I can easily see from this that 
he fails to understand why our style 
of hunting is different from that of 
riding to hounds, as they do in the 
south. 
No horses could follow our dogs very 
far, so with us the main thing is to 
be able to pick a good stand and keep 
it. I was brought up to believe that 
the worst crime a fox hunter could 
commit was to leave a good stand 
when the dogs were out. And I know 
for a fact that if my old fox-hunting 
friend had been in the party of the 
hunt Mr. Jones writes about, whoever 
it was that left “the stand in the road” 
would have heard a lecture on this 
subject that he would have long 
remembered. 
Down in Alabama they may chase 
foxes, but up here in the north we let 
the dogs do that part of it (it is a 
dog’s life anyway) and we kill them. 
That is, we do, if we have outguessed 
the fox in picking the right stand, and 
the wind is in our favor, and the fox 
does not take a notion at the last mo- 
ment to turn and lead right away from 
us. 
I can easily see how Mr. Jones would 
enjoy his style of hunting and it must 
be fine sport as they practice it in the 
south. Now let him picture a north- 
ern fox hunter getting up on a cold 
morning an hour or two before day- 
light, the weather down to zero or 
colder, and two or three feet of snow 
on the ground. After a hurried break- 
fast he puts on a pair of snow shoes, 
and starts out with one or two dogs 
on a chain, and how those dogs will 
pull you along. 
After walking from one to three 
miles in this way he may run across 
an old track made the day before. The 
dogs take this track and in trying to 
work ‘it out may be fortunate enough 
to run across a fresh track made by 
the fox during the night, or they may 
even jump him from his bed in a 
swamp, swale or thicket. Now starts 
a race that may end in some fence a 
few hours later, or it may extend over 
till the afternoon of the next day. This 
fox might putter around in the swamp 
for an hour or so as if he hated to 
leave it, or he may lead the dogs away 
out of sight and hearing and be gone 
for several hours. 
The fox hunter will soon determine 
the general direction in which the hunt 
has gone and then he has to guess the 
“middle, 
direction in which it will return, and 
pick his stand. 
If he hears the dogs soon enough on 
their return, knows the crossing and 
the lay of the country will permit, he 
may be fortunate enough to put him- 
self in a position to obtain a shot. 
In taking a stand it often happens 
that the fox will turn at the last moment 
before coming in range, and pass near 
the place from which the dogs jumped 
him. Now about this time, the fox 
hunter, if new at the game, will leave 
his stand and work over to where the 
fox has just passed. If he does this 
very thing, nine times out of ten inside 
of an hour he may see the fox and 
dog's pass directly under the tree where 
he had been standing such a _ short 
time before. At this time he will feel 
like “kicking himself full of holes.” 
Can Mr. Jones imagine a northern 
hunter, on one of these fox hunts, 
holding down a stand in some break 
of an old stone wall or fence corner, 
or on some bleak rocky ridge, for 
maybe five or six hours at a time. The 
snow deep on the ground, about ten 
degrees below zero, with a keen wind 
blowing down the valley that seems 
to cut through all the clothes you can 
wear. Your feet so cold that it is hard 
to tell where your legs end and the 
stone wall commences. By pounding 
your arms you keep them just so they 
will bend, if you are lucky to have 
enough hair on your head, slip your 
fingers up under your cap and they 
will keep warm. 
Along about this time you think of 
the nice warm wood fire in the kitchen 
stove at home. And you think of the 
warm dinner you might have had, if 
you had not started out that morning. 
You also think of the supper you will 
put away when you do get home, and 
of the apples and cider in the cellar. 
It is growing dark and you stay, 
determined to stick it out as long as 
you can see to shoot. It grows colder 
and at last you start for home, maybe 
the snow has packed so hard with the 
wind by this time that you carry your 
snow shoes on your back, and walk 
over the hard snow. After a little of 
this you get into a hollow out of the 
wind and flounder in snow up to your 
and on go the snow shoes 
again. When you have had from three 
to five miles of this sort of going up 
hill and down you are at home. At 
times I have had to walk as far as ten 
miles to get home and after being on 
my feet all day. This is quite some 
different than riding to hounds, down 
in Alabama. 
On your arrival home you may find 
both dogs there ahead of you, and hear 
in a few days that Bill Brown had 
killed a fox there ahead of your dogs, 
Page 90 
