
Mr. 
Henry Braithwaite’s Tales of the Forest 
HE fox is considered one of the 
most cunning of animals and a 
great many individuals deserve 
the title. I never bothered much with 
them in my younger days as the fur 
wasn’t of much value and it paid better 
to trap other animals. 
I have caught a good many in marten 
traps, and in places where I have killed 
big game and left the entrails and other 
parts not worth much and found foxes 
working around it, I have set traps 
and caught quite a few. So much has 
been said about setting traps for them 
that I cannot add much to it. 
One good set for them, I have found, 
is to take the head of a moose or any 
other animal, or the whole animal, and 
stand bushes over it and let it snow 
up. As soon as it begins to get a little 
strong the foxes come and begin to dig 
it out. Set a trap in the end of the 
tunnel they dig and cover it over with 
a piece of thin paper; hide the clog in 
the snow, go to the windward side and 
take. your snow shoes and throw snow 
in the air so the wind will carry enough 
of it over the trap to hide it. Take a 
bush and level off all tracks and signs. 
When the fox comes along he will be 
pretty sure to dig into it. 
The following water set is pretty 
good in the fall before the snow comes: 
Put the bait out in the water on a stone 
or sod and set the trap between it and 
the shore, about the distance you think 
the fox would step to the shore. Put 
moss or sod on the pan of the trap and 
the fox, in trying to reach the bait, will 
put his foot on the trap. 
220 
Braithwaite before a campfire 
Years ago, I sometimes put out 
poison, but I soon found I was losing 
too many foxes by getting poor poison. 
The method was to find a large lake 
with a big rock some distance from the 
shore. Place the poison on it between 
two pieces of dry bark, lay a flat stone 
on to keep the wind from blowing it 
off, and place a large bait fifteen or 
twenty yards from it on the ice. The 
fox is sure to get up on something high 
to examine the bait and find the poison. 
I remember one winter of getting five 
foxes at one rock and found all of them 
either on it or a few feet from it. The 
next winter I lost three in the same 
place on account of poor poison and then 
I got disgusted and stopped using’ it. 
Rees always been experimenting 
with scents. I remember of once 
making a nice scent which I used on 
fisher traps and the first fisher I caught 
turned out to be a fox. I set more 
traps, using the same scent, and the 
first round got two more foxes. I 
thought I had struck it at last and it 
would have taken some money to buy 
that secret. I almost imagined myself 
an amateur millionaire. I set a lot 
more traps, scented them in good shape 
and left them for some three weeks. 
Then I began to realize that I had 
caught the only three foolish foxes in 
the country, for the others would only. 
go and look at the traps and walk on by. 
Some people say foxes are afraid of 
the smell of iron, but I have seen tracks 
showing where they had gone through 
wire fences. Some few years ago I 
Some 
Meetings 
with 
Reynard 
and 
Hints on 
How 
He May Be 
Caught 
took a trip over an old portage road 
that hadn’t been used for a number of 
years. I saw good signs of marten and 
decided to set some line traps. 
‘ 
| WENT out the next day and com- 
menced setting, building the last trap — 
toward night, and in the morning when 
I went back, I was surprised to find a ~ 
large fox in it. The trap was a small 
one and he was just able to shove his — 
head in it. I had handled the bait 
and everything about the trap with my — 
bare hands. That shows that not all 
foxes are afraid of the scent of man. _ 
I don’t think foxes are so wonder-. — 
fully cute; they are sly because they 
are such wonderful cowards. I have 
shot a good many by coming upon — 
them accidentally in the woods and 
fields when they were looking for mice — 
and seeing them before they saw me. — 
When I wanted them to stop, I made a 
noise like a mouse and they would © 
nearly always stop and listen; but ? 
many times they would spring in the 
air and on two or three occasions they a 
left on the jump. 
Some years ago I had a sporting 
party at the Home Camp. Our cook 
used to throw the scraps out of the 
kitchen window and the foxes got so — 
bold they would come and eat then. 
One of the guides had a bunk close to 
the window. The weather’ was very 
warm and one night he stuck his bare 
feet over the window sill. Sometime 
in the night he woke us all up with a 
frightful yell and declared some ani-. 
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