taking his regular quota of half a doz- 
en naps on as many different stumps, 
he got up and stretched, smoothed down 
his fur, and then all at once seemed 
to think of something important, start- 
ing off up the hill to look at a box trap 
which my son had set at the foot of a 
red oak. A sufficiently credulous ob- 
server might easily have been led to 
conclude that the fox had set that trap 
for a squirrel and made a business of 
looking at it every day. 
T HE observations that have led me 
to the conclusion that foxes remain 
faithful to their mates throughout the 
year, and from year to year, have been 
made by studying their trails in the 
snow. 
The foot prints of male and female 
are easily distinguished, and I have 
noticed that those foxes who hunt in 
pairs all winter, are nearly always a 
male and a female hunting together, 
keeping several rods apart to be sure, 
‘but one or the other often working 
round in half circles, as if with the ob- 
ject of driving game in the direction of 
his mate. Young foxes of the season 
usually hunt by themselves. In the 
pairing season you will find the tracks 
of the male fox following in the foot- 
prints of the female. I have never, as 
far as I can recall, seen any evidence 
of two males following a female, or a 
male with two females. 
I have spoken of all cats in the wild 
state as being monogamous, relying on 
the unanimous testimony of hunters 
and other naturalists as regards the 
larger kinds, lions, tigers, panthers, etc. 
The only exception to this testimony 
being the occasional assertion that some 
lions have been known to have four or 
five females in their harems. 
My own observations in this direction 
have been limited to the study of the 
tracks of the bob cat or bay lynx. These 
tracks have shown me pretty con- 
clusively that bob cats pair for life, 
and that the kittens hunt with their 
parents for the first winter at least. 
Last winter was one of deep, dry 
snow from November to April. 
HREE bob cats, which judging from 
their footprints, were a male, fe- 
male and half-grown kitten, had a more 
or less regular beat of, I know not how 
many miles, coming from the north- 
east across the low ground into a scrub 
growth of gray birch and mixed ever- 
green and hard woods. Here they 
would hunt rabbits for a day or two, 
then off to the westward for a few 
days and back again up the hill in my 
pasture and away to the southeast. 
I saw their tracks along this route, 
_ every few weeks, until the snow melted 
in April, and always the same tracks, 
Page 651 
the big cat, the middle sized cat, and 
the little cat. In May, while ploughing 
on a cloudy day, I saw two animals that 
corresponded to bob cats in size and 
color, go with a sort of bounding gait 
across the low ground and up the slope 
into the pines, just where the wild cat’s 
trail had led through the snows of the 
past winter, but as they were nearly 
half a mile away, I could not be certain 
that they were not a couple of small 
dogs running at large. 
Lions, tigers, leopards, cougars and 
lynxes rarely breed in capivity. This 
has been generally ascribed to the un- 
natural environment and lack of exer- 
cise, which is supposed to deprive them 
of their native vitality, but I am in- 
clined to believe that a better explana- 
tion would be that the true instinct of 
their race, has prevented them from 
making “marriages of convenience” 
when coupled as they have been, any 
male with any female of their species. 
OF lions, the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica says: “The lion appears to he 
monogamous, a single male and female 
continuing attached to each other irres- 
pectively of the pairing season. At all 
events the lion remains, with the lion- 
ess while the cubs are young and help- 
less, and assists in providing her and 
them with food, and in educating them 
in the art of providing for themselves. 
They are said to remain with their par- 
ents until they are about three years 
old.” ' 
The following account by an eyé wit- 
ness—Hon. W. H. Drummond—gives a 
good idea of lion family life. 
“T once had the pleasure of, unob- 
served myself, watching a lion family 
feeding. I was encamped on the Black 
Umfolosi in Zululand, and towards 
evening, walking out, about half a mile 
from camp, I saw a herd of zebra gal- 
loping towards me, and when they were 
nearly 200 yards off, I saw a yellow 
body flash towards the leader, and saw 
him fall beneath the lion’s weight. 
There was a tall tree about 60 yards 
from the place, and anxious to see what 
went on, I stalked up to it, while the 
lion was too much occupied to look 


Soaring aloft 
about him, and climbed up. He had 
by this time quite killed the beautiful 
striped animal, but instead of proceed- 
ing to eat it, he got up and roared vigor- 
ously, until there was an answer, and 
in a few minutes a lioness accompanied 
by four whelps, came trotting up from 
the same direction as the zebra, which 
no doubt she had seen to drive towards 
her husband. They formed a fine pic- 
ture, as they stood round the carcass, 
the whelps tearing it and biting it, but 
unable to get through the tough skin. 
Then the lion lay down, and the lion- 
ess driving the offspring before her, did 
the same, four or five yards off, upon 
which he got up, and commencing to eat 
it, had soon finished a hind-leg, retiring 
a few yards to one side as soon as he 
had done so. 
“THE lioness came up next and tore 
the carcass in shreds, bolting huge 
mouthfuls, but not objecting to the 
whelps eating as much as they could 
find. There was a good deal of snarl- 
ing and quarreling among these young 
lions, and occasionally a stand-up fight 
for a minute, but their mother did not 
take any notice of them, except to give 
them a smart blow with her paw if they 
got in her way. ... There was now 
little left of the zebra, except a few 
bones, which hundreds of vultures were 
circling round waiting to pick, while al- 
most an equal number were hopping 
about on the ground within 50 or 60 
yards of it, and the whole family walked 
quietly away, the lioness leading, and 
the lion following, often turning his 
head to see that they were not followed, 
bringing up the rear.” 
From all accounts that I can find, the 
cougars, or mountain lions of this coun- 
try, have been found hunting in pairs 
at all seasons, a male and female to- 
gether, accompanied by their young in 
the summer. 
When one of a pair is killed, the 
surviver hunts alone, for years appar- 
ently, whether such a bereaved cougar 
ever becomes attached to another, is 
uncertain. 
QO TTERS, I believe, pair for life, 
though the old males evidently go 
off by themselves during the summer. 
I have more than once seen the mother 
otter teaching her young to swim, and 
later ‘in the summer, leading them off 
on long fishing excursions down stream 
to the salt meadows, or across lots hunt- 
ing in the woods. 
At the approach of cold weather, the 
male rejoins his family, and through 
the winter you will find his track with 
theirs, unless the family has _ been 
broken up by the trapper. 
The smaller members of this genus, 
the mink, weasels and skunk, appear to 
