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 THE FOX
 
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 GLEANING AFTER THE SHOOTERS
 
 THE FOX 
 
 THOMAS F. DALE 
 s s 
 
 JOINT AUTHOR OF 'POLO' IN THE BADMINTON LIBRARY 
 
 WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARCHIBALD THORBURN 
 AND G. D. GILES 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 
 
 IQO6 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE design of the Fur, Feather, and Fin Series is 
 to present monographs, as complete as they can 
 possibly be made, on the various English birds, 
 beasts and fishes which are generally included 
 under the head of Game. 
 
 Books on Natural History cover such a vast 
 number of subjects that their writers necessarily 
 find it impossible to deal with each in a really 
 comprehensive manner ; and it is not within 
 the scope of such works exhaustively to discuss 
 the animals described in the light of objects of 
 sport. Books on sport, again, seldom treat at 
 length of the Natural History of the creatures 
 which are shot or otherwise taken ; and, so far 
 as the Editor is aware, in no book hitherto 
 published on Natural History or Sport has 
 information been given as to the best methods 
 of turning the contents of the bag to account.
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 Each volume of the present Series is, there- 
 fore, devoted to a bird, beast, or fish. The 
 creature's origin is traced, its birth and breeding 
 described, and all the sportsman's methods of 
 dealing with it are set forth. In previous books 
 of the series the subjects have only been left 
 when on the table in the most appetising forms 
 which the delicate science of cookery has dis- 
 covered, but the culinary chapter does not come 
 into the scope of this book : the fox is devoured 
 au nature/. 
 
 ALFRED E. T. WATSON.
 
 PREFACE TO 'THE FOX' 
 
 MUCH has been written about the fox, but his 
 varied history has never been told. A book on 
 the fox might easily have been expanded into 
 a history of foxhunting. But my plan has been 
 to write the story of the animal from his own 
 point of view. Even where foxhunting is 
 touched upon, the object has been to illustrate 
 the manners and intelligence of the creature 
 rather than to dwell on the skill and courage 
 of his pursuers. 
 
 It will be seen that the fox has been of 
 importance to man, not only since the rise of 
 foxhunting, but at all periods of history. The 
 naturalist, the sportsman, the moralist, and the 
 student of animal psychology have each and all 
 found the beast an interesting subject of thought 
 
 and study. But when we begin to study the 
 
 a
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 fox in life and literature we find that he is so 
 surrounded by a cloud of myths and legends, 
 ancient and modern, that, like other heroes, his 
 true nature is obscured. It is sometimes diffi- 
 cult to distinguish between the real and the 
 legendary fox. The latter is one of the objects 
 of this book. The stories about the animal 
 told here have been sifted and tested. I have 
 tried not to include anything of which the truth 
 was not probable. The anecdotes which have 
 survived the winnowing process are nevertheless 
 still notable enough to give the fox a high place 
 among animals for his adaptability and in- 
 telligence. I have found, as all students of 
 natural history must, the natural history columns 
 of the ' Field ' most instructive and suggestive. 
 After searching through a long series of years 
 of that paper, I desire to express once for all 
 my obligations both to the facts recorded and 
 to the editorial remarks on them. In disputed 
 points, as that of the existence of the hybrid 
 between the fox and the dog, I have found that 
 my own observations and enquiries confirm the 
 conclusions arrived at by the natural history 
 editor of the ' Field.' So far as I know this book 
 is the first which has collected together the facts
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 known about the natural history of the fox, his 
 intelligence, and his place as a beast of chase. 
 The standard natural history books always say 
 that the ' habits of the fox are too well known to 
 need description.' ' The Life of a Fox,' though 
 full of interest and keen observation, deals chiefly 
 with the creature from the point of view of the 
 huntsman. Thus I am not without hope that 
 both naturalists and sportsmen may find these 
 pages worth reading. 
 
 The latter class cannot but find more interest 
 in their sport when they have some idea of the 
 habits and intelligence of the very remarkable 
 little animal they are hunting. My own ex- 
 perience is that natural history and sport are 
 allies, and that the naturalist and sportsman add 
 to their pleasure by some knowledge of each 
 other's pursuits. Besides the above sources of 
 information I must acknowledge the sympathy 
 and assistance I have received during the pro- 
 gress of this book from Miss Alys Serrell, of 
 Haddon Lodge, Dorset. In her knowledge of 
 hunting and in the keenness and accuracy of 
 her observation she is equalled by few writers 
 on sport. 
 
 It is perhaps needless to say that to write
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 this little book has been to me a labour of love 
 and a constant pleasure from beginning to end. 
 I have undertaken the task with the more 
 confidence because I feel that a book illustrated 
 by Mr. Thorburn and my old friend Mr. G. D. 
 Giles could not in any case lack attractions for 
 the public. I have added a chapter on the 
 jackal because he is to the East both in literature 
 and life what the fox is to the West. I think 
 too that this chapter may increase the usefulness 
 of the book since it contains the practical 
 experiences of one who for some time whipped- 
 in to and then hunted foxhounds after jackal in 
 the East. In addition to my own experience 
 this chapter includes the lessons taught me by 
 Major Henry Clerk, late of the Queen's Bays, 
 under whom I learned the work of a whipper-in 
 and huntsman as well as how to manage hounds 
 in kennel in a hot country. 
 
 Such as the book is I send it out in hopes 
 that it may interest my fellow sportsmen and 
 field naturalists and be found not unworthy of 
 the admirable series of which it forms a part. 
 
 T. F. DALE.
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE Fox . . i 
 
 II. THE EDUCATION OF THE Fox ... 24 
 
 III. THE MIND OF THE Fox 44 
 
 IV. How TO PRESERVE FOXES .... 64 
 V. HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE Fox . 79 
 
 VI. THE HUNTED Fox 101 
 
 VII. THF. Fox AS A CAPTIVE, AND NOTES ON 
 
 MANGE ........ 122 
 
 VIII. THE Fox AS OUTLAW 144 
 
 IX. THE Fox IN FAHLE . . . . . . 161 
 
 X. COUSIN JACK 179 
 
 XI. THE Fox AND HIS FUR 202 
 
 XII. HUNTING THE Fox. ..... 213
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 A. THORBURN AND G. D. GILES. 
 (Reproduced by the Arc Engraving Company, Ltd.} 
 
 GLEANING AFTER THE SHOOTERS . . Frontispiece 
 
 'HUNTING is HIS LIKE' To face p. 24 
 
 WHEN ALL is QUIET ,,26 
 
 WARNING ECHOES ,, 61 
 
 ' HlS STRENGTH EXHAUSTED AND WILES 
 
 EXPENDED ' ,,63 
 
 'THE FOX WAS SEEN TO SWIM BACK' . . ,, 86 
 SHADOWED ,, 155 
 
 ' DOES NOT PLAY THE GAME AS THE FOX 
 
 DOES' ,,196
 
 THE FOX 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 
 
 THE survival of the fox is the most notable fact in 
 his natural history. This he owes to his adaptability 
 to changes of food, climate, and surroundings. For, 
 of all the carnivora, he has, with the exception of the 
 otter, the widest geographical distribution. The fox 
 is at home in Europe, Asia, including India, a great 
 part of Africa, the whole of North America, and a 
 distinct but allied species, Canis Virginianus known 
 as the grey fox in the United States is found in 
 South America. 
 
 The fox has few friends and many enemies, and 
 yet is probably as numerous as ever he was. Every- 
 thing turns to his advantage. The plans of his enemies 
 are often discomfited, and as in fable, so in real life
 
 2 THE FOX 
 
 the fox not only escapes but benefits by the efforts 
 made for his destruction. Even the fox's worst 
 enemy, man, helps him by killing down the wolf, the 
 strongest, swiftest, most persevering foe he has. The 
 fox-chase, which began as a genuine vermin-hunt, is 
 now the best protection the race has in England. 
 During the last hundred years the number of foxes 
 has increased enormously in this country. 
 
 But, indeed, wherever the fox has come in con- 
 tact with man he has been of importance in the 
 literature and life of his most subtle enemy. The 
 truth about the audacity, cunning, and intelligence 
 of the fox is so marvellous that it is no wonder 
 that he has become a popular hero of fable and 
 folklore. 
 
 At one time I thought the fox was fairly well 
 known to me, but the observations and inquiries on 
 which the following chapters are based have shown 
 how much there is still to know. After many years' 
 study of the fox we shall find that he is most difficult 
 to dogmatise about. His intelligence is a most 
 profitable study in animal psychology, of which it 
 has only been possible to skim the surface here. 
 I have tried to verify my facts and anecdotes and to 
 avoid reading into them my own preconceived ideas 
 and theories ; and I hope they may be accepted as
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 
 
 a contribution to the history of an animal which is 
 interesting alike to naturalists, historians, and literary 
 folk. The story of the fox touches that of mankind 
 at innumerable points. 
 
 The common fox has, we have seen, a wide 
 geographical distribution, and thrives in many 
 countries, under various skies, and among widely 
 different surroundings. But he is very much the 
 same in internal and external conformation, and in 
 the shape of his skull and his teeth, wherever he is 
 found. These last two distinguishing points, indeed, 
 are so much alike that it is difficult to distinguish 
 species among foxes. Seven are acknowledged besides 
 the common fox. The majority of foxes are varieties 
 of our English fox, and will be touched on in these 
 pages very lightly, our main concern being with 
 Cam's Vulpes, the little red rover of sportsmen, the 
 Reynard of fabulists, poets, and mythologists. Wher- 
 ever we travel we meet him. He may vary much, 
 but the Himalayan fox, the red and cross foxes of 
 America, the silver fox of the North, the khaki- 
 coloured fox of the Nile, the slate-coloured fox of 
 Thibet, are all specifically identical. In the same 
 way there is but one fox in England, the 'greyhound,' 
 ' mountain,' and ' cur ' foxes being quite imaginary 
 distinctions. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE FOX 
 
 But having made clear that the fox is the same 
 wherever we find him, we see that he is subject to 
 great variations in colour, size, and weight. This 
 tendency to modification in minor particulars may be 
 perceived by examining carefully any collection of 
 foxes' masks. It will be noted that the size of the 
 heads differs, that some are rounder in the face and 
 shorter in the snout than others. The differences 
 are so great that it would be easy to believe the 
 animals are of distinct species. 
 
 Again, a fox varies in colouring according to the 
 country he lives in. Since concealment alike from 
 his prey and his enemies is an immense advantage to 
 him, we are prepared to find that his coat harmonises 
 with his surroundings in such a way as to make him 
 invisible at a short distance. Thus the woodland 
 foxes of England and the foxes of the Himalaya 
 are red in colour ; the Scotch fox is of a grey that 
 matches with the heath and rocks of his native 
 haunts ; the Asiatic variety of Cants Vulpes known 
 as V. flavescens is a sort of yellowish-khaki colour. 
 Nor is this all : foxes vary in colour in the same 
 district, but always, I think, in such a way as to assist 
 their concealment. I have also noted how foxes 
 when hunted, as the fur loses its brightness, become 
 more and more difficult to see, so that in a plough
 
 country a fox travelling up a furrow is almost in- 
 distinguishable from the surrounding earth. Another 
 variation of colouring is in the white tag to the tail or 
 brush. Some foxes have it, others are without it. It 
 was believed, and perhaps some people still think, that 
 only dog foxes have the white tag. As a matter of fact 
 I do not know that it is more common in one sex than 
 the other. But these old beliefs are not as a rule 
 without foundation, and I should not wonder if there 
 proved to be a majority of dog foxes among the white- 
 tagged ones although we have no figures to go upon. 
 It is not surprising to find many abnormal colours 
 in a race so variable. White foxes are not indeed 
 common but are fairly frequent. In 1898 a white fox 
 was seen in the Roborough Woods, a covert belong- 
 ing to the Stevenstone (Hon. Mark Rolle's) country. 
 There has been one white fox killed in Essex, and 
 two in Somersetshire, one of the latter being pre- 
 served at Cothelestone Hall, 1 near Taunton. There 
 was also an instance in Kincardineshire ; but this 
 fox is believed to have come ashore from the wreck 
 of a Norwegian vessel and was probably an Arctic fox 
 (C. lagopus) which is one of a species distinct from 
 our common fox. Black foxes also are reported from 
 
 1 Mr. C. J. Esdaile, of Cothelestone Hall, tells me that he 
 knew this fox from the time when it was a cub.
 
 6 THE FOX 
 
 time to time. Those in the Midlands are probably 
 descendants of some Sardinian foxes turned down, it 
 is said, in the Belvoir country, or of the long-legged 
 variety, often imported, known as V. Melanogaster 
 from the dark colour of its under parts. This variety 
 is also found in Italy, the Ardennes, and Scandinavia. 
 
 The fox is a member of the family Canida, 
 a notable and ancient race of which the foxes at all 
 events belong to the old world, no fossil remains 
 having been found in America up to the present 
 time. Although the Canidce are remarkable among 
 the families of the animal kingdom for their similarity 
 in structure and habits, yet the fox diverges from 
 the rest of the dog family to such a degree, that the 
 late Professor St. George Mivart considered it pos- 
 sible that the wolf and the fox may be among the 
 instances of animals much resembling each other in 
 structure and habits which are yet developed from 
 widely differing originals. The dog, the wolf, and 
 the jackal will interbreed, and in some cases the 
 hybrids are fertile. But the fact of a cross between 
 the dog and the fox still remains to be proved. 
 
 Although, however, the existence of the cross 
 has not yet been proved, many competent observers 
 believe that it occurs. Mr. T. Smith, the author of 
 ' The Life of a Fox,' certainly thought that such
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 
 
 crosses exist. Miss Serrell, the author of 'With 
 Hound and Terrier in the Field,' assures me that 
 she knows of an undoubted instance, and while I 
 was writing this chapter a most interesting article 
 appeared in the Natural History column of 'The 
 Field' (September 30, 1905), entitled 'Wild Dogs in 
 Spain.' Mr. J. G. Haggard, the British Consul at 
 Malaga, communicated to the ' Field ' some notes 
 respecting these animals. He remarks their resem- 
 blance to the fox, and we cannot but be struck with 
 the similarity in the measurements he gives to those 
 of our foxes. Mr. Haggard writes : ' In colour, the 
 animal is yellowish-grey with long grey hairs inter- 
 spersed' (this might stand for a description of 
 many fox-skins I have examined), ' and it is very long 
 in the leg for its size, like all the Spanish foxes. The 
 dimensions roughly taken are as follows : From nose 
 to tail, 30 inches ; ear, 3^ inches ; foreleg, 7^ inches ; 
 hind leg, 9 inches ; tail, 1 1 inches. Of course, I can- 
 not tell the age of the animal, but it seems to me 
 much larger than the English fox.' A comparison 
 of these measurements with those of the typical skin 
 given on p. 203 of this book will show that the 
 animal measured by Mr. Haggard was shorter in the 
 body, but higher on the leg, than the average of 
 English foxes. The above was referred to Mr. Abel
 
 8 THE FOX 
 
 Chapman, and he notes the likeness to a small breed 
 of Spanish sporting dog, which is popularly believed 
 to be a cross between a fox and a dog. Mr. Busk 
 confirms this, and writes that the animal was pro- 
 bably a Podenco or Andalusian rabbit dog of the 
 variety known as the ' Caleva or Paterna breed.' 
 This strain is popularly thought to have originated in 
 a cross between a fox and a dog (bitch). I have 
 often heard of such dogs taking to the hills and 
 living wild, preying on sheep and goats and exhi- 
 biting much of the astuteness and cunning of the 
 fox and wolf in keeping out of the way of human 
 beings. The editor of the ' Field ' remarks on the 
 likeness of the animal, of which a careful drawing 
 illustrated the article, to the Spanish fox (Melano- 
 gaster\ and, he goes on, its general aspect ' appears 
 to lend some support to the popular belief in Spain, 
 that when domesticated dogs run wild, as they some- 
 times do, and take to preying for themselves, they 
 occasionally mingle with the fox of the country and 
 produce a litter of hybrids.' These facts could not 
 be passed over, but they hardly amount to a proof; 
 and it is equally possible that the Podenco may be a 
 descendant of a dog-and-wolf cross, degenerate in 
 size through selection for many generations by 
 Spanish sportsmen.
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 9 
 
 The protective colouring of the fox, and the 
 advantage this must be to an animal which is both 
 hunter and hunted, have already been noticed. If 
 we examine a number of the skins of the fox, we 
 shall find that scarcely two are exactly alike. Protec- 
 tive colouring in animals is a most interesting topic, 
 but it leads to puzzles which we cannot solve. 
 Perhaps the will of the animal has something to do 
 with it, and I seem to trace a faint clue to the con- 
 nection between the protective colouring and the 
 mind in the intense desire of the fox to remain con- 
 cealed and unseen. This is one of the dominant 
 motives of the fox's life. That this is a possible 
 theory we infer from the fact that a blind animal 
 does not change colour. Put a dozen minnows into 
 an ordinary white wash-hand basin and they will in 
 a very short time be of a pale colour. If over one 
 no change passes we may be tolerably certain that it 
 is blind. There is probably some connection between 
 the animal's sense of incongruity with the surround- 
 ings and this change. 
 
 Foxes are the smallest of the dog family. The 
 biggest fox is but a small animal, no larger on the 
 average than a wire-haired fox terrier. I have col- 
 lected as many instances as I could of the various 
 weights of full-grown foxes, and I can find none so
 
 io THE FOX 
 
 light as io lb., and no authenticated weight over 
 26 lb. Scotch, Welsh, and Lake-country foxes are 
 rather above the average of English. Joe Bowman, 
 of the Ullswater Hunt, whose hounds, in common 
 with other Fell- country packs, never break up a fox, 
 has weighed many hundreds of foxes, and gives the 
 average weight of a dog fox as 15 lb. and of a vixen 
 as 13^ lb. He has never, he writes to the 'Field,' 
 killed so small a ox as one of n lb., nor one that 
 weighed over 23 lb. His heaviest fox was killed on 
 Cross Fell, where they average rather more than in 
 the rest of the district. Hill foxes are very tough 
 and wiry, and often stand up before hounds for a 
 long time. Strong and active though a fox is, a 
 really good terrier is more than a match for the 
 biggest fox. A little fox terrier named Corby, be- 
 longing to Lord Decies, was put to ground to bolt a 
 fox in the Ullswater country. She was underground 
 for twenty- four hours, and killed three large dog 
 foxes which were in the earth, one behind the other. 
 Their total weight was 62 Ibs. 
 
 Even the characteristic odour of the fox is vari- 
 able. It is much less in some individuals than 
 others. The pretty little fox of Bengal and the 
 swift, graceful desert fox of Scinde, leave little or 
 no scent, but they will give a capital gallop with a
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 11 
 
 couple of not too fast greyhounds. Their turns 
 and twists are very rapid, and the dogs are easily 
 unsighted by them. More often than not, the fox 
 escapes by going to ground, and my recollection of 
 our courses is that the kills were few. I have more 
 than once found them in the Punjab when drawing 
 for jackal with foxhounds, but the pack could seldom 
 run them farther than they could see them. Major 
 Clerk, who was Master of the Queen's Bays' Hounds, 
 told me, however, that he had a few good gallops 
 after foxes in the Punjab. 
 
 It occurs to me that individuals may vary in 
 leaving a scent, more or less strong, and that the fact 
 of some members of the fox family being deficient in 
 scenting qualities may be a confirmation of this 
 theory, which is held by many hunting men. If 
 closely allied species differ in this respect, why not 
 individuals, since all general variations probably arise 
 from the inheritance of individual peculiarities? It 
 is easy to see that the Asiatic foxes gain greatly by 
 the absence of scent, for with it their presence would 
 be made more evident to wolves and leopards, both 
 of which animals destroy them. The advantage of 
 scenting powers to the English fox, a widely scattered, 
 solitary species, is obvious. It need not surprise us 
 to find intermediate variations, and it is noteworthy
 
 12 THE FOX 
 
 that the foxes which have no scent are more social 
 in their habits than those which leave a trail behind 
 them. 
 
 Our English fox lives alone the greater part of its 
 life. For a short time in the breeding season foxes 
 pair, and just before and after the cubs are born the 
 old fox feeds or helps to feed the vixen and her young. 
 In the breeding season the dog foxes fight fiercely, 
 and I have very little doubt that a good many of the 
 weaker ones are killed by the old dog foxes in these 
 contests. How fierce these fights are the following 
 instances will show. On one occasion two foxes 
 were fighting so savagely that a man and a dog were 
 able, unnoticed, to approach quite close to them. 
 The man watched them for some time before they 
 parted and crawled away wounded and blood-stained. 
 On another occasion a man saw two foxes fighting 
 and intervened to save the life of the smaller fox. 
 He had to hit them several times with a stick before 
 they would separate. This throws light on the 
 boldness of the fox at certain seasons, and helps to 
 show that foxes pair after having fought and won the 
 lady of their desire. It is at such times that foxes 
 lose some of their cunning and caution and often fall 
 victims *to their enemies. That foxes pair is also 
 shown by the fact that while in the spring hounds
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 13 
 
 sometimes find a dog fox alone, the vixen is seldom 
 or never seen by herself. At such times if there are 
 two foxes in covert the first that goes away is always 
 the dog, and he is possibly endeavouring to lead the 
 pack away from his mate. If left to themselves the fox 
 will feed his vixen, and if the vixen is killed he will 
 bring up the family by himself. The wants of a fox 
 family are large, but they have some ingenious labour- 
 saving devices. 
 
 Some years ago my attention was drawn to a 
 story in the ' Field ' of a woodcock left outside an 
 earth in which was a vixen. The earth was stopped, 
 so that it must have been in the hunting season just 
 before or just after the cubs were born. No doubt a 
 dog fox had brought it for the vixen within. The 
 fact excited notice, for woodcocks are not common 
 in the neighbourhood. Under the woodcock's wing 
 were packed neatly two young rabbits. This curious 
 method of packing the food is common, for not very 
 long after this a vixen that laid up near my father's 
 house made a raid on our poultry, and as she 
 selected some rather choice game fowls there was 
 great lamentation. One morning early the vixen was 
 caught in the act of making off with a hen. A stable- 
 boy saw the robber and hurled a stick. The old 
 vixen dropped the hen. When we came to examine
 
 I 4 THE FOX 
 
 it there were four chicks neatly packed under the 
 wing. 
 
 Pictures and a once familiar nursery song represent 
 the fox as catching birds by the neck and swinging 
 them over his shoulder. I have never seen a fox do 
 this. A fox carries its prey in its mouth exactly as a 
 retriever does, and the habit I am describing accounts 
 for this. Since then I have heard of a grey hen 
 ound in Norway with eleven small capercailzie and 
 a mouse under its wing, and no doubt this is a 
 common habit, for again the advantage of it is so 
 obvious where a vixen has herself and four or five 
 hungry cubs to feed. 
 
 Nearly all the Canida lay up their young in 
 burrows, and the fox generally, but not invariably, 
 does this. Looking at the animal's limbs, made as 
 they are for activity and speed, we should naturally 
 conclude that it was not an accomplished excavator. 
 The fox either takes advantage of natural caves and 
 crevices, which it enlarges if necessary, or he enters 
 on the labours of the badger or the rabbit. In some 
 cases where the soil is unsuitable also I think in 
 districts where the earths are much disturbed the 
 vixen fox makes a nest for her cubs above ground. 
 Stub-bred foxes are not uncommon in the Oakley 
 and Fitzwilliam and in parts of the Craven countries.
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 15 
 
 There is no suitable place that a fox will not use 
 for the purpose, and I have known cubs to be 
 found in a hayrick, under the floor of a barn, and 
 once actually underneath a house, the master of 
 which was supposed not to be too friendly to foxes. 
 Possibly the vixen selected this as being the place 
 where her enemy was least likely to look for her. 
 When, however, cubs are found in these unusual 
 places, it is probably true that they have been laid 
 up elsewhere and have been removed, as the custom 
 of the fox is, to a new resting-place. 
 
 An interesting question meets us here : what 
 are the relations between the fox and the badger? 
 Exactly what these are is by no means clear. At first 
 we should be inclined to think that the badger and 
 fox would never get on together. The badger is the 
 most cleanly of animals : his earth is always kept sweet, 
 and he removes all droppings to little pits at some 
 distance away which he digs for the purpose. The 
 fox is far from fastidious in his habits : he leaves 
 loose feathers and bits of wool about in a way which 
 must be highly disconcerting to the orderly instincts 
 of the badger. Besides this, the fox sometimes buries 
 what he cannot eat, and leaves it until it becomes 
 high. The badger, like other tidy people, is rather 
 s.hort in its temper, especially Mrs. Badger when she
 
 1 6 THE FOX 
 
 has cubs. The fox and the badger probably lay 
 up their litters about the same time. But two 
 things are clear, and these are that the foxes and 
 badgers do sometimes live in the same earths, and 
 even lay up their cubs in them, though always in 
 different chambers. You may, for example, open an 
 earth and to the left of the entrance find badgers, and 
 to the right foxes. I think, however, that in most 
 of these cases the fox has laid up her cubs elsewhere 
 and has removed them, finding the badger's earth 
 a convenient place, and possibly the badger, which 
 is an excellent fighter under covert, something of 
 a protection against invading terriers. From the 
 Exmoor, West Somerset, Fitzwilliam, Belvoir and 
 Blackmore Vale hunts, I have collected instances of 
 foxes and badgers living in the same burrow ; but that 
 all is not peace is clear from the instances of vixens 
 and cubs killed by badgers given by the late Tom Firr, 
 huntsman of the Quorn, and by Mr. Pease. On the 
 other hand the badgers not seldom desert the earth 
 when occupied by foxes, perhaps disgusted by the 
 dirty habits of the latter. But another point is clear : 
 that the occupation by the fox must be by the per- 
 mission of the badger, which has might as well as 
 right on his side. It is probable, therefore, that such 
 commensalism must bring some advantage to the
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 17 
 
 badger, though what that is it is difficult to see. 
 One solution suggests itself to me, that the 
 badger, which cannot be much of a hunter, obtains 
 animal food by robbing the fox on its return from 
 hunting. May not the badgers at certain seasons 
 require more nourishment than they are able to catch 
 for themselves ? If it be contended that the badger is 
 not a carnivorous animal, we reply with the question 
 of the old keeper, What are his teeth and jaw for then, 
 and why is he so often caught in traps baited with 
 wild rabbits ? Possibly the rabbit is the key to the 
 mystery, and the alliance between the fox and the 
 badger is strictly on the do ut des principle of the late 
 Prince Bismarck. 
 
 Fox cubs are born, as we have seen, towards the 
 end of March, and probably Mr. Tom Smith was right 
 when he wrote that most of them are born within a 
 week or two before or after Lady Day. There are, 
 however, many instances of early and late cubs, for 
 the fox is constant only in one thing its variability. 
 Foxes are born blind and remain so for eight days. 
 The cubs are pretty little fluffy, snub-nosed things, 
 rather dark in colour like young Irish terriers. They 
 are suckled by the vixen for about a month, and it is 
 at the end of this time that the mother moves them 
 if she means to do so. 
 
 c
 
 18 THE FOX 
 
 The fox cub is bom into the world at the season 
 when food is plentiful, and especially rabbits, rats and 
 birds are young and tender. It is then, as we shall 
 see, that the old vixen is most dangerous to young 
 broods. 
 
 Nothing comes amiss to foxes, young and old, 
 and their bill of fare is very varied, including insects, 
 particularly beetles, some fruits and berries. But 
 nevertheless vixens are often hard put to it to 
 find food. Probably insufficient nourishment of 
 the vixen before and after her cubs are born is 
 one of the contributory causes of mange. At such 
 times, no doubt, the vixen is more likely to rob 
 a hen-roost or raid a partridge's or pheasant's nest, 
 than at others ; for I believe that under ordinary con- 
 ditions the vixen does not plunder the farmyard or 
 the coverts in her immediate neighbourhood when, as 
 is sometimes the case, she lays up her cubs near the 
 dwellings of man. 
 
 I find, as the result of many inquiries, a very 
 general opinion prevails that the vixen does not as 
 a rule seek her prey immediately round her earth. 
 Not indeed because the fox would have any objec- 
 tion to violate the laws of hospitality or the rules of 
 neighbourly conduct, but that she has a great desire 
 to conceal her cubs while they are still helpless. She
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 19 
 
 is anxious to avoid betraying their hiding-place, and 
 for this she has good reason. Foxes had, and have 
 still, a pecuniary value, and the dangers to the young 
 family are many. First there are the fox-stealers, and 
 the methods of these men are often ingenious. The 
 most effectual plan is to send a small terrier, trained 
 to the work, into the earth, to bring out the cubs un- 
 injured, one by one, in its mouth. The Hunt servants 
 often have orders to move cubs from places where 
 they are not safe, to others where they are more wel- 
 come. The farm labourer sometimes, and the keeper 
 often, digs out and destroys what he considers to be a 
 superfluous litter. Thus the vixen has many dangers 
 to fear. Like all animals of prey, the fox instinctively 
 conceals itself, and it requires no effort to believe 
 that the vixen will not betray the whereabouts of 
 her earth if she can by any means conceal it. But 
 hunger is the supreme law of the wild animal, and 
 the creature left entirely to her own resources, and 
 less strong and active than usual, may, and doubtless 
 often does, forget her caution. 
 
 At other times the vixen simply places the cubs 
 in a nest above ground ; and this I think depends a 
 good deal on the age at which the cubs are moved. 
 Foxes are said to travel long distances carrying a 
 cub. If we consider that a litter may consist of four 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE FOX 
 
 or five, and that the fox can only carry one at a time, 
 the courage and endurance displayed are very great, 
 and a comparatively short distance between the new 
 refuge and the original earth would add up into a 
 considerable journey. But the vixen is a most courage- 
 ous and devoted mother, and instances are not at 
 all uncommon of one having been seen in front of 
 hounds carrying a cub in her mouth. There is an 
 objection to stub-bred foxes and to the plan so often 
 advocated of closing all earths permanently, since 
 litters laid up above ground must be in considerable 
 danger of being snapped up as unconsidered trifles 
 by the hounds during the latter weeks of hunting. 
 
 A varied diet is necessary to the fox's health, and 
 I have no doubt that when foxes are fed artificially, 
 the want of insect food, and perhaps of the fruits 
 and berries with which they vary their diet, is inju- 
 rious to their health and is another contributory 
 cause of mange. I am of opinion, judging by the 
 quantity of beetle-cases and other similar remains 
 which may be discovered in or about a fox's earth, 
 that insect food plays a very considerable part in the 
 economy of the fox family and has much to do with 
 the rearing of healthy cubs. 
 
 Miss Serrell has told me the following anec- 
 dote : ' For several years in succession a vixen
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 21 
 
 came regularly to the back of my kennels to search 
 for bones on the rubbish-heap at the bottom of 
 the orchard in which they were situated. I often 
 saw her and suggested to the keeper to put a dead 
 rabbit for her. The first night she did not touch it. 
 It was then lightly buried ; she immediately dug it 
 up and afterwards came regularly for her meal. One 
 evening, going down to feed the terriers rather later 
 than usual, after flinging open the kennel doors 
 to let the dogs have their run, to my dismay 
 I spied the vixen on the top of the straw hunting for 
 her meal. Walking backwards and whistling softly 
 to the dogs, I drew their attention the other way, 
 while the fox crouched down quite still ; had she 
 attempted to run, they would have seen her, and 
 then alas ! poor fox ! ' The same careful and accu- 
 rate observer goes on to say : ' A vixen will fight 
 courageously in defence of her cubs, and I have 
 several times known a vixen to attack and drive out 
 a terrier from the earth.' 
 
 It is strange, but a dog which will attack and 
 kill a fox under ordinary circumstances will not 
 always fight when the tables are turned on him. 
 On one occasion a terrier accustomed to bolting 
 foxes followed a rabbit into an earth where a 
 vixen had laid up her cubs. Very quickly he
 
 22 THE FOX 
 
 came flying out followed by the vixen. She chased 
 him right across a field, and knocked him over twice 
 before he gained the shelter of the cart in which his 
 owner was. When the man shouted the vixen reluc- 
 tantly abandoned the pursuit and trotted slowly back, 
 whisking her brush in the way foxes do when angry or 
 when stalking their prey. There was another vixen 
 that lived in the shrubbery of a house where foxes were 
 much respected, and she was frequently seen to dash 
 out and attack any passing dog. The dogs invariably 
 ran away, leaving her mistress of the situation. 
 
 The fox comes to maturity at from eighteen 
 months to two years, and lives about twelve to 
 fourteen years. Probably very few fulfil their natural 
 span of life. But a certain number do, and these 
 learn so much by experience that it is very difficult to 
 kill or trap an old fox. 
 
 No doubt the animal's habit of killing and burying 
 the food that is not wanted for immediate consump- 
 tion is a survival. Moreover, the fox, like the dog, 
 buries his food lightly so that he may the more readily 
 remove it when it becomes a little high, in which 
 condition he certainly enjoys it none the less. When 
 the animal buried is a rat, he leaves the tail above 
 ground, whether as a sort of help to finding it I do 
 not know. At all events all the dog family bury 
 th.eir food and generally leave something sticking out.
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FOX 23 
 
 A retriever that used to kill chickens had two fox-like 
 habits : she always went some distance for her victims, 
 and buried them near her kennel. But she invariably 
 left their tails sticking up out of the earth, thus 
 leading to detection and punishment. 
 
 The fox has the worst possible character as a robber 
 of hen-roosts, but this is rather a vice than a habit. 
 The creature is credited with many more depreda- 
 tions than he commits. All the destruction wrought 
 by stray dogs, by prowling cats, by rats, stoats, and 
 above all by human thieves, is put down to the fox. 
 The mischief worked by the fox is often compen- 
 sated for, that of the others is not, therefore the fox 
 has the blame of misdeeds not his own. A friend of 
 mine who lives near a famous fox-covert tells me she 
 has never lost a bird. The fowls are let out late and 
 shut up early in the winter. Thus as the fox comes 
 out late and returns early they never get in his 
 way. More than half the losses in poultry are occa- 
 sioned by carelessness, and insufficient fastenings 
 or rotten buildings. It may be noted that more 
 chickens are lost through bad management and un- 
 healthy dwellings than by any depredations of the fox. 
 Nevertheless no one can doubt that foxes do in one 
 way or another destroy much poultry in the course of 
 a year. It is all the more reason why they should 
 not have the credit of mischief they have not done.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 
 
 THE life of the fox is, and always has been, that of 
 both hunter and hunted. He has been an object of 
 pursuit by other animals and (at all periods since 
 they have existed on the earth together) by man. 
 Thus a fox is continually either seeking for and 
 pursuing his prey, or endeavouring to evade his 
 enemies. Of these the first probably occupies by far 
 the larger part of his time. Hunting is his life ; being 
 hunted, but an episode. For these two ends a fox is 
 educated by three teachers : Nature, his mother, and 
 his enemies. 
 
 The foundations of his training are the instincts of 
 his race. There have been many theories put forward, 
 but the problem of instinct remains to be solved. It 
 is possible that what we call instincts, so far as they 
 are capable of adaptation by intelligence, are a kind 
 of tribal memory. The life of the lower animals is 
 short, and they have not the time to store up all the
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 25 
 
 experience they need. So, just as we have glimmer- 
 ings of some past existence which perhaps is not 
 individual but that of the race, so young animals in- 
 herit a store of experience as much greater than that 
 of the child as their time is shorter. 
 
 The method by which this stored-up experience 
 from the past history of the race is made available 
 is their play. Those who have watched fox cubs 
 must have noted how complete a rehearsal of the 
 whole drama of the fox's life love, war, hunting, and 
 escape from his enemies is the play of the young 
 foxes. In those first months their muscles are made 
 supple, their senses keen, by practice and exercise, 
 and the experience of the race is called out of the 
 past and made of service for the present. The fox's 
 liking for secluded situations for its earth often renders 
 it possible to observe the life of the cubs. In many 
 cases the earth is under a rock or rough cluster of 
 roots, on the side of a southern slope. The fresh- 
 drawn earth catches the eye among the many-tinted 
 undergrowth. The fox-earth in some coverts is not 
 hard to find, and many of them have been used for 
 a long time. An established burrow may be drawn by 
 the vixens and used for a century, and there are some 
 well-known earths in hunting countries which must 
 have been occupied every spring for quite that time,
 
 26 THE FOX 
 
 While watching cubs at play it is well to remember 
 that if a vixen suspects the presence of man she will 
 move her offspring. One of the earliest lessons the 
 cubs learn is to fly at the first thought of danger. They 
 learn this partly from their mother and partly because 
 it is one of their race experiences. If the cubs are ever 
 so eagerly engaged in play, when the vixen utters a 
 warning note they are gone. The idea that the earth 
 is a place of safety when danger threatens remains 
 with them, and although foxes spend most of their 
 active life above ground, yet the earth is always a 
 refuge to be sought in the moment of danger. I have 
 known a litter bred in a small spinny to return thither 
 when hard pressed from coverts many miles away. 
 
 A litter of healthy young foxes scatters widely 
 over the country, and its members occupy suitable 
 quiet spots. I know a covert of no very great extent 
 which is kept quiet and where there are always foxes. 
 This covert has been drawn forty times in succession 
 and never once blank. There is no earth at all in it, 
 yet the supply of foxes never fails. 
 
 As soon as the young ones can move about 
 they come to the mouth of the earth when all 
 is quiet. The first game is hide-and-seek, at which 
 cubs display great activity and cunning. In almost 
 every litter I have watched, there is one cub larger
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 27 
 
 than the rest. He is, it must be confessed, something 
 of a bully. But I think that it is distinctly an ad- 
 vantage for the race that one of each litter should be 
 bolder, stronger, and cleverer than the others. In the 
 event of the mother being killed, which often happens, 
 this cub, I believe, acts as a kind of leader and tutor 
 to the others. In one case a rather dark-furred cub 
 with a white tag to his brush was considerably in 
 advance of his brethren, whom, however, he led a sad 
 life, yet greatly, I have no doubt, to their benefit. He 
 would go some distance away and then carefully stalk 
 them, creeping, crouching, crawling stealthily onwards 
 till he would pounce suddenly upon them, apparently 
 to their great terror. Thereupon a great fighting and 
 snarling arose, which was sometimes quelled by the 
 mother. On one occasion when the old vixen brought 
 back a crippled rabbit (in this way does she teach the 
 cubs to kill) the dark cub was the first to seize and worry 
 it, the others being apparently half afraid until their 
 stronger brother showed the way. Though cubs are 
 of course all born at the same time, the privileges 
 and duties of an elder brother always fall to one, and 
 he is, I think, invariably the favourite of the mother. 
 I can well imagine this stronger cub leading the way 
 in forays, if the vixen should as many do lose her 
 life early in the spring or summer. By example this
 
 28 THE FOX 
 
 cub will teach the others to fend for themselves, for 
 young foxes have to learn every detail of their craft. 
 If you put a litter of foxes without a vixen into a 
 strange covert, they must be confined and fed for 
 a time, or they will wander away and starve in the 
 midst of plenty, because they have not yet learned how 
 to live without help. So in their play the cubs prac- 
 tise diligently, and every leaf that flutters in the wind, 
 every insect that crawls, they stalk most scientifically. 
 It is very curious how cat-like in many ways a 
 fox is : it has the canine structure but the feline 
 strategy. The waving of the brush slowly backwards 
 and forwards when food is in sight or expected, and 
 when stalking, is very noteworthy. When the vixen 
 is heard or winded returning to her cubs the little 
 brushes begin to wave, not, I am convinced, as a 
 dog wags its tail, but as a cat or a tiger sways its 
 tail when meditating an attack. This curious slow 
 movement may be of assistance to animals when 
 stalking their prey. The movement in the grass 
 behind the creeping foe may attract the eye and 
 help to conceal the crouching danger. Like the 
 devices of the conjurer to distract our gaze from 
 what he does not want us to see, so the fox or 
 the cat with gently waving brush or tail distracts 
 the eye of the intended victim.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 29 
 
 Before the young fox wanders far from home 
 it has learned something of stalking and killing 
 its food. It has kept its muscles lithe and supple 
 by ceaseless play. It has learned caution, yet has 
 not an old head on young shoulders, for no animal 
 learns more by experience of life than the fox. 
 Trappers tell us that old foxes learn to spring the 
 trap and take the bait, and to avoid even the most 
 tempting bait that has the least taint of man whose 
 odour is at least as unpleasant to the fox as his 
 is to us. I have elsewhere given my reasons for 
 thinking that after a long experience many old 
 foxes seldom or never allow themselves to be hunted 
 at all. But still the young fox has been taught 
 much and remembers more, and when he leaves 
 the earth and follows his mother on her hunting 
 expeditions, the next lesson he has to learn is to 
 know the country thoroughly. The foxes that have 
 no mother never learn this. Vixens, and especially 
 old ones, are for this reason necessary to sport. 
 How few such there are in some countries we know. 
 Even where the vixens are not shot as soon as the 
 cubs can feed themselves, they are often young and 
 thus know but little country nor have they need to. 
 The keeper, in perfect good faith that he is a true 
 preserver, because he has killed no foxes, shoots
 
 30 THE FOX 
 
 rabbits for the vixen and cubs, and practically keeps 
 her so well supplied that she has no occasion to 
 hunt 
 
 Foxes learn a country, not as we know it, in a 
 general way, but in the most minute and detailed 
 manner. The places where is the best hunting are 
 the points, and between these are many things 
 useful for a fox to know. For instance : how a 
 field can be crossed without his being seen, where 
 a small lithe body can slip swiftly and easily through 
 a hedge, where a drain gives a temporary hiding- 
 place from sudden perils. 
 
 The range is varied by the fact that at different 
 seasons of the year the fox finds his prey in different 
 places. In the summer the hedgerows and ditches 
 are excellent hunting-grounds, and nothing comes 
 amiss to the fox. He catches a beetle, digs out 
 a nest of field mice, snaps up a foolish young bird, 
 stalks the rats in the hedgerow and the hares in the 
 open field. In autumn and winter the fox gleans 
 after the shooters and picks up the wounded birds 
 and beasts. For he is, though a hard-working 
 animal, ever ready to avail himself of anything that 
 may save trouble. Where foxes are preserved they 
 naturally haunt the shooters' footsteps, but it is 
 not unlikely that shooting draws them to a covert.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 31 
 
 I have certainly seen on several occasions two or 
 three foxes in coverts where I believe there were, 
 as a rule, none at all. When the shoot is over the 
 keeper looks out for them, but they are gone. A 
 fox always works back to his own lair, whether 
 that be above ground or below. Thus many a 
 covert-owner has the credit for foxes he has not, 
 because one or two have turned up in the course 
 of the day attracted by the firing. We know that 
 the fox is very keen to interpret all scents and 
 sounds that suggest food or danger, and various 
 devices to protect nests of game birds, after being 
 useful for a time as a deterrent, have in the end 
 acted as a signpost to direct the fox to them. 
 
 When the vixen ceases to train her cubs, all 
 nature combines to help on his education. Clever, 
 active, and patient, the fox finds that other animals 
 have these qualities. Life is not all play, though 
 there is much pleasure. There is no doubt that 
 in hunting there is keen pleasure which, in our 
 case and in that of the hounds, has survived the 
 necessity of seeking food. The fox unquestionably 
 enjoys his hunting as well as the food it brings. 
 
 One of the first things a young fox learns for 
 himself is the use of his nose. He is gifted with 
 a very delicate sense of smell. I have thought
 
 32 THE FOX 
 
 much on the nature of scenting power, and I think in 
 the economy of an animal's life it fills somewhat of 
 the same place as speech and reading do with us. 
 A fox reads, as it were, with his nose the informa- 
 tion he requires, and the older foxes gain more 
 and more skill in interpreting the indications given 
 by scent to their nostrils as time goes on. The 
 sense of smell is in the animal so infinitely more 
 effective than it is with man, that it is as difficult 
 for us to conceive what scent can tell them as it 
 is for the animal to understand our language. 
 Scent to the animal is language spoken and written, 
 and the nose fulfils part of the work which his eyes 
 do for man ; and as we learn by degrees to interpret 
 what we see, so does the fox what he smells. 
 Nothing is more certain in animal psychology than 
 that animals learn by experience, and that life and 
 time are for them, as for us, teachers. Thus the 
 young fox begins to learn to read Nature by her 
 odours, a power of which we have only an adumbra- 
 tion when the scent of a flower recalls the past. 
 The pictures called up to us by scents are but 
 dim compared with the vivid images the fox's brain 
 receives from them. We see how valuable this 
 delicate sense of smell is to an animal of nocturnal 
 habits. As the fox goes out on his nightly search
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 33 
 
 for food, his nose conveys to him a complete 
 picture of his surroundings. Nature, as far as she 
 interests him at all, has no secrets from him. He 
 knows at once where the brood is by the scent of 
 the egg-shells left by the chicks. He detects the 
 young rabbits in their nest and digs down on them ; 
 the way of the marauding rat in the hedgerow is 
 plain to him. A whiff of a man or a dog is enough 
 to make him alter his course. Every opportunity, 
 every danger is clear to him, and he can seize the one 
 and avoid the other. Animals have one advantage 
 over men, that they have seldom a doubt as to the 
 course to be pursued. 
 
 A fox is no doubt affected by the conditions of 
 the atmosphere which make scent better or worse 
 on particular days for the hounds. It is perhaps his 
 own experience of the night before, which gives 
 him the knowledge he seems to possess, of the 
 strength or weakness of the scent he leaves behind 
 him. It is an almost universal opinion among 
 huntsmen that a fox regulates his pace and methods 
 by the strength or weakness of the scent he leaves. 
 This is probably correct in many cases, and so, too, 
 is the opinion of ' Nimrod,' that a fox is affected by 
 the cry of the hounds, and as that waxes or wanes so 
 he goes faster or slower. A fox accommodates his 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 THE FOX 
 
 pace to that of the hounds, and as ' Nimrod ' well puts 
 it : ' The fox in front of the slow hound is, I should 
 say, nine times in ten not a yard farther ahead than 
 he would be before the quick ones.' This is true 
 in most cases, though no doubt there are exceptions, 
 as I shall presently show. 
 
 But to return to the education of the fox. When 
 his mother and Nature have finished with him, and he 
 has, as a well-grown cub, every equipment of know- 
 ledge necessary, and only lacks experience, man comes 
 in and teaches him the next step, for in August and 
 September the coverts are disturbed. Up to this 
 time the cubs have hunted in concert, led by the 
 vixen. One morning the cubs come home from their 
 nightly prowl to find the earths stopped. They make 
 a futile effort to scratch in, if they are not frightened 
 away by the smell of man and dog in their familiar 
 haunts. It is scarcely light, the pleasant misty gloom 
 of a fine autumn morning hangs over the trees, the 
 air is moist with a heavy dew, the faint chill of 
 dying summer is in the air. Then the wood is full 
 of sharp noises. If instinct is in part tribal memory 
 serving where, owing to the shortness of life, personal 
 experience is insufficient, the sounds of the hunt wake 
 faint reminiscences, and the cubs are on the move. 
 It may be, however, that the vixen, who warns
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 35 
 
 them of so many dangers and teaches them so 
 many things, instructs her young as to the dangers 
 of being hunted. But heredity and training have 
 already made the young fox an evasive, elusive, and 
 wary animal. The cubs avail themselves at once of 
 the advantage of the thick undergrowth. They know 
 every passage, and an animal which can at a pinch 
 squeeze through a six-inch drain-pipe finds it easy to 
 move about in the strongest covert. On the other 
 hand the great blundering foxhound puppy, half 
 wild with excitement, with the scent of the fox in his 
 nostrils, the maddening cry of his fellows in his ears, 
 and the hereditary joy of the chase thrilling his whole 
 nature, crashes through the undergrowth and comes 
 out at last, half smothered with heat and torn by 
 brambles, into the grass ride for a breath of air, as 
 a diver rises from the water. The scent at first is 
 catchy, but as the air grows warmer it holds better. 
 The young hounds grow steadier, and the advantage 
 is less and less with the fox. The heat becomes 
 overpowering in the wood, and it is possibly again a 
 reminiscence of the experiences of his race when he 
 realises that he must die or go away. Now we see 
 an instance of a truth too often forgotten : that while 
 what we call instincts are common to a whole race, 
 they exist in very varying degrees in individuals. 
 
 D a -
 
 36 THE FOX 
 
 There is as much tendency to variation in the strength 
 of instincts as there is in intelligence and outward 
 form. Thus we note that the instinct to evade, even 
 among cubs of the same litter, takes a different form 
 in different individuals. One, weary, frightened, and 
 heated, thinks of some other covert. He has once 
 gone there to hunt rabbits. It seems as if any- 
 thing were better than this hideous turmoil of his 
 native woods. He slips down the ditch, hits off a 
 well-known smeuse in the hedge, and makes his 
 way over the cool grass-field. The fresh morning air 
 gives him new life and vigour. He has not departed 
 unnoticed. Jim, the first whipper-in, has viewed a fine 
 clean cub. He is ready as two promising puppies hit 
 off the line and scramble through the hedge. Throw- 
 ing their tongues frantically, they bring half the pack 
 out into the field, crack goes the thong into their faces, 
 ' Get awaay baick ! ' and at the same moment another 
 chorus arises in the wood, the puzzled hounds dash off, 
 and have soon forgotten their disappointment in the 
 excitement and savage joy of a kill and a worry. They, 
 like the men who follow the hunt, shed for the time 
 the polish of domestication and civilisation and return 
 gladly to the primitive state. It is interesting to note 
 that those are the happiest moments of our lives when 
 we can forget for a time an existence to which civilisa-
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 37 
 
 tion has brought slavery and suffering to man and 
 dog alike. But the little fox three or four fields away, 
 striding along in the full joy of his life free from the 
 sounds of pursuit, has made a great step in his educa- 
 tion. It is safer to fly than to stay, and when he 
 returns, as he certainly will that night or the next 
 day, to the covert he was born and bred in, the lesson 
 will be enforced by the traces of dog and man, and 
 perhaps by the taint of blood about the place. Nor 
 
 % 
 
 will he forget it. If it is a large woodland our fox 
 shifts his quarters ; if a small one he very likely leaves 
 altogether for some less haunted spot. Thus the 
 litter is scattered, and the young foxes are thrown on 
 their own resources and adopt, until the next spring, a 
 solitary life. Each hunts and kills for itself. Each 
 has its own lair where it sleeps, though it always keeps 
 the main earth where it was born in its memory 
 as a possible refuge. 
 
 Although foxes return to their earths when pressed, 
 I am inclined to think that few of them till after their 
 first breeding-season have any regular underground 
 habitation, going to ground in drains and rabbit-holes 
 when necessary as occasion offers. Henceforward 
 the fox, having escaped by flight, will most likely 
 follow the methods of escape which he has found 
 successful hitherto. In the same way, possibly,
 
 38 THE FOX 
 
 one of his brothers or sisters, more likely the latter 
 (for the vixen has probably a much stronger instinct 
 for going to ground than the dog fox) has slipped into 
 a drain or rabbit-hole, as his or her powers were fail- 
 ing, and thus escaped. Having done this once it will 
 be tried again and again. Going to ground is a habit 
 that grows on foxes. It is natural to adopt in times 
 of danger a method of escape which has proved itself 
 to be useful before. 
 
 Mr. Tom Smith, of Craven and Pytchley fame, 
 had a theory that foxes knew when.it was a good 
 scenting day, and promptly went to ground to avoid 
 danger. I do not doubt that foxes have an idea of the 
 scenting properties of the day, but I do not think 
 they go as far as this. Yet Mr. Tom Smith was a 
 most careful observer, and no huntsman has ever 
 understood the nature of the fox better. At all 
 events, the fox who escapes by flight is a much more 
 valuable animal to the hunt than one who goes to 
 ground. Nevertheless it must not be too readily 
 assumed that the fox who goes to ground is a bad one. 
 
 Foxes are not always judicious in the places they 
 choose as refuges, and it would probably astonish us 
 if we could know how many lose their lives in drains. 
 I have seen as many as six foxes dislodged from a 
 drain, out of which they could not have escaped.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 39 
 
 I have heard of the remains of no fewer than thirteen 
 foxes being found in one drain. A fox takes refuge 
 in a drain : there is no outlet, he cannot work 
 backwards ; then behind him slips in another, this 
 makes the matter more hopeless still, and both 
 are suffocated or starved. Again, many foxes are 
 drowned in sudden floods because they have taken 
 refuge in drains or culverts. 
 
 There is another use besides a refuge that foxes 
 make of short drains : they run through them, 
 thus causing great delays to their enemies. In 
 the season of 1904-5 I saw a very clever ruse of 
 this kind with the West Somerset hounds. The 
 fox had been driven hard for some distance up to 
 a village ; he slipped into a garden or yard, thence 
 over a wall into the road, into and through a short 
 drain, and, strange to say, must have passed quite 
 unperceived up the village street. The pack hunted 
 him over the wall and one or two old hounds 
 marked him at the mouth of the dram-pipe ; but 
 as the drain was short and the other, outlet was to 
 be seen in the street down which the whole hunt 
 had come, the huntsman, a well-known and clever 
 one, was some time before he recognised the trick, 
 and then the fox was a long way ahead and ran on 
 out of scent.
 
 40 THE FOX 
 
 This and much else the hunted fox learns if 
 he survives, and many are his wiles. One common 
 and very effectual trick is to run up and down 
 the hedgerows. Hounds generally flash over the 
 line at each fence and the fox gains a little time. 
 The day is often far spent, the fox has been hard 
 run, and his scent grows fainter. Time is all on 
 his side. Hounds and men become a little unsteady 
 and excited, and at last the fox runs his pursuers 
 out of scent. 
 
 The fox has been known to evade the hounds 
 in many ingenious ways : to swim off to a small 
 island and lie concealed in the rushes, to climb 
 a wall and hide in the ivy. Foxes are very often 
 found in trees. One fox took refuge in an old 
 magpie's nest, and probably escaped many times 
 until, the ruse being discovered, he was turned out 
 and killed. In the Duke of Beaufort's country, 
 where many of the fields are divided by walls, foxes 
 have often been known to run along the top of 
 the walls. Still more ingenious was the fox who 
 found a hole in a rock under an ornamental cascade 
 in some pleasure-grounds where he hid, and was, 
 of course, always lost in mysterious fashion, until 
 at last a gardener discovered the place and it was 
 stopped; but the fox escaped. In the end hounds
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 41 
 
 drew him out from some leaves in a park, under 
 which he had buried himself. Both these places 
 were well chosen, for the hole was unknown until 
 the gardener discovered it, and a fox lying still under 
 dead leaves would give little or no scent, decayed 
 leaves being, as is well known, bad conductors. 
 
 A fox's mind is continually being sharpened as 
 it is pitted against the wits of the animals he hunts 
 and of those by whom he is pursued, until a mature 
 fox sometimes manages never to be hunted at all, or if 
 hunted nearly always escapes. Every hunt has stories 
 of the ' old customer.' The fox that is generally 
 found at home gives a good run, is never caught, and 
 disappears at last. In the first place such foxes beat 
 hounds because they never throw away a chance, and 
 because they are in perfect health and condition. 
 The ' fitness ' to run far and fast of an animal that 
 has to work for his food will always be superior to 
 that of one who has his food brought to him as the 
 hound has. I often watched one such fox go away. 
 He was a standing dish in the hunt. If the day was 
 bad we could redeem it by drawing for the ' New 
 England ' fox, as he was called, from the name of 
 the covert. Through the gate, down the path, over 
 the stream at the bottom (a tributary of Tennyson's 
 brook, for I will never believe that Somerby brook
 
 42 THE FOX 
 
 was not the original one), up the slope to the 
 low stile behind the tree we gallop. The hounds 
 are throwing their tongues on the far side of the 
 wood. The fox will break soon, for I never knew 
 him fail somehow to leave when hounds were at 
 the farther side. There he goes, a hard-looking 
 customer with an easy stride. He sits up for a minute 
 or two, then glides swiftly on. A holloa brings 
 hounds streaming out. We gallop for four miles 
 hard and straight ; then we lose him. Such foxes 
 often disappear altogether. I believe that at last 
 they become too clever to be hunted at all. The 
 least sound is enough, the crack of a whip-thong, 
 the clang of a gate, an unwonted whiff of tobacco, 
 the dull sound of hoofs in the ride, and the old 
 customer is off at once before hounds are in 
 covert and ere the quickest whipper-in can go round 
 to view him : to such perfection has he brought the 
 art of using the ground to conceal his movements. 
 Swift and untiring, he is far out of reach in some 
 distant covert before the hunt has fairly begun. 
 When at last he is overtaken by death, it is age 
 that runs him to ground, or it may be the teeth of 
 some younger rival ; or occasionally at last the hounds 
 do catch him when his prime is past ' a very old 
 fox,' says the hunting diary; 'not a tooth in his head.'
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 43 
 
 His life has not been an unhappy one, for he 
 rejoices in his vitality, his resource and cunning. 
 Whatever else is or is not true of animal intelligence, 
 this at least is certain, that brutes have a pure joy in 
 living unknown to men except, perhaps, in the first 
 spring of their youth. 
 
 But this joy they owe to their perfect training 
 in Dame Nature's school, which fits them exactly for 
 their life. 
 
 The fox is perhaps one of the happiest of animals, 
 in being so perfectly adapted for the life he has 
 to lead.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MIND OF THE FOX 
 
 THE fox offers one of the best possible subjects for 
 the study of the mind of an animal. Our friend the 
 dog is greatly affected and influenced by his asso- 
 ciation with ourselves. He is a leading case of 
 variation produced by domestication. The fox, on 
 the other hand, has always resisted all efforts to 
 domesticate him. It is doubtful if a fox ever be- 
 comes really tame. The long enmity between the 
 vulpine and human races cannot be wholly made up. 
 The fox may be to a certain extent sophisticated by 
 the artificial methods used to preserve the race, but 
 he is never domesticated ; he is always at bottom 
 the beast of prey. Yet in spite of his wildness and 
 wariness, whether as friend or enemy, the creature 
 is always under observation, and we know as much 
 about him as it is possible to know about any wild 
 animal. Of our other outlaws, the badger and the 
 otter are still something of mysteries to us. Of their
 
 45 
 
 lives we know little beyond the main facts, and in the 
 case of the badger, even some of these are not quite 
 clear. But the fox, as we have seen elsewhere, has 
 always been accepted as a type of wisdom, cunning, and 
 knavishness. He has always been observed, and has 
 attracted the attention of many notable men. The fox 
 owes something of his reputation, no doubt, to his 
 position as a wild animal, at once familiar and not 
 dangerous, and to his nocturnal habits, which cause 
 a certain sense of suddenness and mystery to attend 
 his thefts and depredations. 
 
 Then the fox has the advantage of his beauty 
 and grace, which, as we know, are a set-off even to 
 ordinary intelligence. It is not certain, however, 
 that he is in reality more intelligent than other wild 
 animals. What is clear is that we know more about 
 him. The study of the mind of the fox helps to 
 give us the key to the workings of the minds of 
 other animals, less well known to us than he is. 
 
 It seems probable, however, that many things in the 
 history of the race combine to stimulate the fox's mind. 
 Animals who seek their prey by night are apparently 
 among the most intelligent. The fact of working in 
 the darkness stimulates to the utmost the acuteness 
 of their senses, and their mental power is to some 
 extent correlated with the senses of smell, hearing, and
 
 46 THE FOX 
 
 sight. I place the senses in this order because I 
 think it is that of their importance, and we may be 
 greatly helped in understanding the mind of the fox by 
 remembering this. 
 
 The intelligence of animals is doubtless limited, 
 but it is most effective within its bounds. The average 
 mental power of foxes is high. There is probably 
 considerably less difference in proportion between 
 the intelligence of the cleverest and the least 
 clever fox, than between a clever and a stupid 
 man. But, then, while our social system is framed 
 for the express purpose of preserving stupidity and 
 dullness, the whole tendency of life for the fox is to 
 exterminate the foolish ones. I have before noted 
 that the remarkable fact in the natural history of the 
 fox is that he has survived. Not only does the creature 
 thrive in those English counties where he is carefully 
 preserved, but he holds his own in countries where 
 he is not regarded with favour, and even where he 
 is beset by the danger of being hunted for his skin. 
 One chief reason for this survival is that the fox, 
 as a race and as an individual, learns quickly 
 and effectively by experience. That peculiar form of 
 racial memory which we label instinct, places the 
 past experience of the race at the service of the 
 individual, and starts the young fox with an equip-
 
 THE MIND OF THE FOX 47 
 
 merit of caution, cunning, and wisdom that serves 
 him well. Yet the individual has to use his own 
 mind and add to his experience for his own benefit. 
 
 Next to acquiring this experience an important 
 characteristic of the fox is his adaptability of body and 
 mind. A fox can, under those circumstances which 
 come within his circle of ideas, adapt his action to the 
 needs and opportunities of the case with extraordinary 
 quickness. The rapidity and precision with which the 
 body and mind of an animal work together are most 
 noteworthy, and are nowhere more easily observed 
 than in two familiar animals, the fox and the cat. 
 
 In the fox the intelligence which is necessary for 
 the survival of the race is very marked, and I think 
 we may assume that if he had not possessed something 
 of the wisdom and cunning with which poets and 
 fabulists have endowed him, he would not have been 
 the successful animal he is in the struggle for existence. 
 We have seen that he is one of the oldest, the most 
 widely distributed and successful, of the carnivora. 
 He is also a small animal, and relatively not very 
 strong : a resolute terrier is more than a match for a 
 dog fox. On the other hand, the wits of an old fox 
 are often more than a match for a clever huntsman 
 and a pack of the best foxhounds in the world, for 
 the late Duke of Rutland gave it as his opinion and
 
 48 THE FOX 
 
 who could know better? that when hounds had a 
 healthy mature fox in front of them, the odds were 
 six to four on the hunted animal making his escape. 
 
 There was the famous Butterwick Jack, hunted 
 by Mr. Farquharson's hounds in the Blackmore Vale 
 country. The slightest sound was enough to start 
 him. He never waited to be found, but went away 
 at once. He always ran from Holnest to Dorchester, 
 taking the same line. Jack was invariably lost in the 
 water-meadows near Dorchester. Probably he took 
 refuge in a drain, for he was found drowned in these 
 meadows after a flood. Then there was Old Piebald 
 at Ropsley Rise, in the Belvoir country, who was 
 known to the Duke's woodmen for eleven years. He 
 had a remarkably thick pelt, and was grey with age 
 when at last Will Goodall and the Belvoir hounds 
 killed him. Old Piebald never went away, but clung 
 to the woods. 
 
 The fact that the fox invariably adopts the method 
 of escape that he has once found effectual shows, in 
 spite of his cunning, the limitation of his intelligence ; 
 for if he be baulked of his accustomed trick he is 
 generally killed. But although a fox has, as a rule, 
 but one method of escape, the fox that climbs the 
 tree, runs along the top of the hedge, lies crouched in 
 the hedgerow or under the bank of the stream while
 
 THE MIND OF THE FOX 49 
 
 hounds dash over him, shows considerable intelligence 
 in making use of these methods of escape on the 
 spur of the moment, as a means of deceiving or evad- 
 ing his enemies. But I do not think he uses these 
 for the first time when hunted. A fox often disturbed 
 will make his lair in the ivy-covered tree for the sake 
 of the quiet and seclusion he loves above all things. 
 He has probably found that crawling along the top of 
 the hedge or wall enables him to outwit the rabbits 
 and rats. A sudden spring between his prey and its 
 refuge confuses it and makes it an easy victim. We 
 know from our hunting experience that a fox crouched 
 gives no scent, and therefore he is not winded by 
 the rats and rabbits. Thus the stratagems of the 
 hunter are available for the safety of the hunted. 
 
 In many ways a fox is inferior in strategy to the 
 red deer or the hare. When a fox turns short back 
 on his tracks he does so, not in order to puzzle his 
 enemies, but from two causes : first, when he is headed ; 
 secondly, when he has reached the limit of his know- 
 ledge of the country. If, however, a fox be driven out 
 of his country he generally runs straight forward. 
 Though he will often pass within sight of an open earth, 
 he will turn neither to the right hand nor to the left 
 for a drain or rabbit's hole, and die fairly exhausted 
 almost within hail of safety. He cannot usually I have
 
 50 THE FOX 
 
 learnt not to say ' never ' about the habits of animals 
 strike off a new idea on the spur of the moment. He 
 has almost to run his head into a rabbit-hole before 
 he will avail himself of it, if he is in a strange country. 
 Thus we perceive that the fox, like many clever people, 
 has his limitations. I should not like to say how much 
 or how little he sees, but I think that by day his scent 
 is much more useful than his sight. He knows, for 
 example, the earth or tree in his own country and 
 every path that leads to it. But he is probably not 
 capable of the calculation : ' Here is a wood, foxes 
 live in earths in woods, therefore very likely there is 
 an earth in this wood.' The strange wood is to him 
 absolutely dark, and presents no other idea than any 
 other feature of the country. Foxes that are being 
 hunted will skirt a wood and never enter it They 
 know that a heated fox is smothered in a wood ; they 
 do not grasp the probability of an earth or a hollow 
 tree being within it. The mind of the fox, like those 
 of other animals, never goes beyond a certainty and 
 does not concern itself with probabilities. 
 
 Another limitation to the fox's mind I have noticed 
 is that, although he often lies perfectly still while hounds 
 are drawing a covert, and so escapes for the time, 
 he nearly always moves too soon. In the Southwold 
 country is a long, rather narrow, and open copse on
 
 THE MIND OF THE FOX 51 
 
 the side of a steep slope. From the lane beneath 
 every part of the covert can be seen. I knew 
 where a fox lay curled up under a bush, and watched 
 the place : hounds were all round him, but he lay 
 low and never moved; one hound actually sniffed 
 at the bush, but he did not stir; another jumped 
 over him, but he made no sign. Then the hounds 
 were blown out of covert, and he sprang up just too 
 soon : a laggard hound winded him or perhaps caught 
 a view. 
 
 A similar instance of great but insufficient in- 
 telligence was shown by another fox. He generally lay 
 in a small covert of some two or more acres. When 
 he heard the hunt coming he would leave the 
 covert and lie out in a ploughed field, returning as 
 soon as the coast was clear. The keeper told me he 
 had seen him do this several times, and offered to 
 show me the fox, adding the unkeeper-like condition 
 that I was ' not to holler ' as being a ' meanlike thing ' 
 to do. Sure enough from a place of vantage I saw 
 the fox steal out when hounds were still a great way 
 off, and creep into a furrow where he lay lost to my 
 eyes, but where the keeper could still see him. The 
 hounds came, drew the covert blank and were called 
 off. The fox jumped up and was trotting back when 
 the second whipper-in, bringing along the last of the
 
 52 THE FOX 
 
 pack, saw him, and of course holloaed, and back 
 came the hounds. A very pretty gallop this fox gave 
 us, which I enjoyed with a clear conscience, having 
 resisted all temptation to holloa. The fox went away, 
 was lost, came back in due time to his old haunts, 
 and tried the same trick ; but the next time, of course, 
 the huntsman knew of it, and bringing hounds round 
 between the fox and the wood, started close to his 
 victim and killed him in twenty-five minutes. 
 
 But if the fox cannot strike out a new line on the 
 moment, he can and does learn certain things by his 
 experience of being hunted. Everyone must have 
 noticed that foxes nearly always manage to leave a 
 covert when hounds are on the further side. The 
 fox perhaps realises the advantage of going away with 
 a start, more probably he chooses the quiet side from 
 his desire to escape notice how clever he is at this 
 we all know. Mr. Fernie's famous Glooston Wood 
 fox slipped away at the top end of the wood on his 
 last journey crept unseen past one of the most ex- 
 perienced hunting farmers of the Midlands and the 
 first whipper-in. Hounds took a line up to the fence. 
 ' Seen him ? ' said the huntsman. ' No,' when an old 
 bitch that never went wrong squeezed under the gate 
 and promptly hit him off. There followed a famous 
 gallop, and many of those out had to train back from
 
 THE MIND OF THE FOX 53 
 
 Melton. This is an instance of the persistence with 
 which an old fox returns to his haunts. He had 
 been hunted five times consecutively, and always 
 came back to Glooston. 
 
 A fox, moreover, very soon knows whether 
 hounds are on his line or not. Coming back from 
 hunting one afternoon, I viewed a fox in the next 
 field ; he was going his best pace, and I could hear 
 hounds running. The cry stopped, and the fox 
 slackened and sat up to listen. Then the music of the 
 pack travelled down the wind again. The creature 
 now sloped quietly away, and dwindling sounds 
 showed that the hounds had changed foxes, of which 
 he was as well aware as I. 
 
 It has been sometimes said that a fox can dis- 
 tinguish harriers or staghounds from his natural 
 enemies. This, however, is not at all certain ; and a 
 friend of mine, the Master of a West-country pack in 
 a much-hunted district (he has two packs of stag 
 hounds and three packs of harriers in his country), 
 told me he is sure that foxes in such a country live 
 much underground. It may be that the foxes do 
 distinguish, but they do not the less dislike the dis- 
 turbance caused by the presence of hounds. I have 
 not much doubt that those Masters are right who 
 dislike harriers and beagles in their country : whether
 
 54 THE FOX 
 
 they are wise is another matter. Foxes certainly find 
 out the least disturbed places and the safest refuges. 
 
 The fox knows well when he is safe, and he 
 knows too whether the scent is good or bad. It is 
 also clear that he comprehends that he is being pur- 
 sued by scent, for he has certain definite ideas of 
 covering his trail. I have very little doubt that foxes 
 recognise in some way the advantage of a flock of 
 sheep, or herd of cattle, in destroying scent. Foxes 
 often make use of those stretches of bad scenting- 
 ground which exist in almost every hunting country. 
 But this is easy to understand : animals never forget. 
 The fox has found once or twice but once is pro- 
 bably enough that to cross that particular tract of 
 country relieves him of the pressure of the chase, 
 therefore he makes for the place again. Foxes, I 
 think, do know that plough is bad for scent and grass 
 is good. They will nearly always use roads if they 
 have escaped that way before. 
 
 The fox certainly adopts the stratagem which is 
 familiar in the case of the stag, and I suspect is com- 
 mon to all hunted animals, of rousing another to take 
 his place before hounds. I know of one notable in- 
 stance of this which was told me by a keeper a 
 shrewd observer. In his beat he had a well-known 
 fox-covert in which was an old ivy-clad tree, which he
 
 THE MIND Ofi' THE FOX 55 
 
 suspected to be frequented by foxes. One day, when 
 hounds were in the neighbourhood, he determined to 
 watch the tree ; he believed he would thus solve the 
 problem of certain unaccountable disappearances of 
 foxes in his covens, and roll away from himself and 
 his under-keeper the reproach of careless earth-stop- 
 ping. After watching some time, a far-off note on 
 the horn, and then the melody of hounds rising and 
 falling, waxing and waning with the ground, the set 
 of the wind and the fortunes of the chase, came down 
 the breeze. Presently a fox trotted straight up the 
 ride ; his arched back, his dragging brush clogged 
 with mud, his weary gait, told beyond possibility of 
 doubt that he had been hunted. He was too hot to 
 seek the shelter of the covert, and was seen to be 
 making for the tree. He scrambled up it, there was 
 a smothered growl, a snarl, and a young fox one of a 
 litter of the same year, for the keeper recognised him 
 by the fact that he had very light-coloured pads and 
 a white patch of fur on the throat leaped to the 
 ground. The old fox had turned out the young one 
 to run in his place. Five or six minutes later the 
 hounds came up, hesitated, hovered for a moment 
 near the tree, and then driving forward hit off the 
 fresh scent and dashed on. This happens probably 
 often enough, though it is only rarely possible to
 
 $6 THE FOX 
 
 observe the actual exchange. There was one fox I 
 knew of that lived in a hedgerow. Though he was, 
 as I believe, but a cub of the last spring, he was a 
 precocious one, for when hounds came we never 
 could find him. At last we brought a fox on a good 
 scenting day from some distance. The pace had 
 been very fast, hounds had started on good terms 
 with their quarry and had been screaming at his 
 brush for twenty minutes or more when we reached" 
 the hedgerow. There was never a pause or a halt, 
 but the fox we rolled over six or seven minutes later 
 was a light-coloured one, and quite fresh. The hedge- 
 row cub that young reprobate, the robber of hen- 
 roosts, the stealer of scraps, a parasite of the pig- 
 stye was killed. The hunted fox was seen plodding 
 wearily back to the woodlands whence he came 
 the same afternoon. No doubt this one, the bigger, 
 stronger, and older, came down on the hedge- 
 row haunter sleeping the sleep of the selfish, and 
 rousing him out, coiled down in his lair until hounds 
 had gone on, 
 
 A fox knows, too, that he is at a disadvantage in a 
 strange country, and most runs are limited in distance 
 by the extent of country ordinarily travelled by the fox. 
 This is about four or five miles as a rule. When the 
 fox reaches the limits of his knowledge he generally
 
 THE MIND OF THE FOX 57 
 
 turns back. But some are much greater wanderers 
 than others. One Master of Hounds tells me that 
 he thinks that imported foxes i.e. Scotch, Welsh, 
 or foreign knowing that they are ignorant of the 
 country, remain below ground when hounds are out, 
 for the first season at all events. But I am inclined 
 to think that foxes that are turned down very often 
 do not stay, but return, or endeavour to return, to 
 their own haunts. 
 
 It may be asked how it is that animals find 
 their way back to their homes from a considerable 
 distance. I am inclined to think that they have 
 a sense of direction. If we watch a blind dog in 
 a field, we shall see that as long as we are 
 going away from home he is puzzled, but if left to 
 himself and he once gets his head in the right direc- 
 tion for home, he trots off without hesitation. I have 
 an old terrier with whom I walk every day : he is 
 nearly if not quite blind, but he can always find his 
 way home if once his nose points in the right direc- 
 tion. This is the only theory to account for the 
 wonderful way in which marked foxes return. A 
 Duke of Grafton hunted bag foxes round Euston. 
 These were captured for the purpose in Whittlebury 
 Forest in Northamptonshire, and sent up. One fox 
 is known to have returned no fewer than three times.
 
 58 THE FOX 
 
 Turned down at Euston, he made his way home. Of 
 course, having once done this he could easily do it 
 again, for the memory of the lower animals is at once 
 minute and retentive. 
 
 Another instance is that of a vixen who was 
 marked and turned down before a pack of hounds. 
 She went straight back to the earth from which she 
 had been taken, was recaptured and brought back, 
 and four times she returned. At last she was killed 
 by the hounds near her earth. 
 
 There is another matter connected with the mind 
 of the fox which is of considerable interest. What 
 does a fox feel while he is being hunted ? There are 
 two views about this. One is reached by an ex- 
 aggeration of the perfectly sound principle that the 
 minds of the lower animals and of our own are made 
 of the same stuff the same in kind but differing in 
 degree. 
 
 Therefore many people think they have but to 
 imagine what their own sensations would be if they 
 were hunted by fierce and untiring foes. But this is 
 a mistake. It is quite true the mind-stuff of all sen- 
 tient beings is probably the same, but the quality and 
 quantity vary enormously. To assume that there is 
 a sameness between the mind of man and that of the 
 lower animals is the only possible theory by which
 
 THE MIND OF THE FOX 59 
 
 we can know anything about them. But we must 
 not forget the differences. 
 
 To begin with, animals have not language. 
 Thought itself can only go a certain way without 
 words. Animals can probably distinguish colours ; 
 for example, they may recognise the difference 
 between one colouring and another ; but they can 
 have no abstract ideas of colour. Therefore we must 
 cut out all abstract ideas in interpreting the mind 
 of the lower animals. Then we have to recollect 
 three facts which must affect the fox's mind greatly : 
 First, that he lives so near the ground (the world 
 probably appears very different at six inches from 
 what it does at six feet from the earth) ; that his sight 
 is not extraordinarily keen, and his nose is. 
 
 On the other hand, the fox has a power of con- 
 centrating his attention on any point of importance 
 to himself. He is intensely observant, not easily 
 distracted. I think that animals look forward 
 hardly at all, and that their memories, efficient 
 as they are, must be a bundle of facts, not of 
 inferences. A man finding his way over a country 
 has a general impression, but the fox remembers 
 almost every twig and stone. The man goes on 
 making a few rapid and almost unconscious inferences 
 as to the district ; the fox is passed on, as it were
 
 60 THE FOX 
 
 from stick to stone, from stone to tree, from hedgerow 
 to wood. 
 
 With the possible exceptions of the dog and cat, 
 whose domestication has sophisticated their minds, 
 the lower animals live almost entirely in the present, 
 scarcely looking forward at all, backward only so 
 far as memory helps them. It. is clear that if, as I 
 think, the fox has its memory developed as being an 
 advantage to the race in the struggle for existence, 
 it will have developed in the most practically useful 
 directions. Thus the old fox, coming back and find- 
 ing his earth stopped, does possibly recollect that the 
 last time this happened he was hunted, and at once 
 departs for the day ; but I do not think that he has 
 any painful looking forward to the terrors of being 
 hunted, such as we should have. The law of self- 
 preservation prompts him to go away for his own 
 benefit and that of the race, and he goes. But not 
 always. If foxes do take a hint of coming trouble, 
 they are the wisest, oldest, and most experienced. 
 The average fox is but a wild beast. Foxes have the 
 desire of the carnivorous animal for sleep after food ; 
 and trotting off, excluded from his earth the fox will 
 curl himself up in a convenient place near at hand. 
 
 The fox sleeps lightly, probably owing to the 
 fact that he has been hunted since the world
 
 WARNING ECHOES
 
 THE MIND OF THE FOX 61 
 
 began. The soundest sleepers among foxes are 
 soon cut off, as all huntsmen know. I have 
 more than once watched a startled fox, every 
 sense on the alert, the keen nose slightly raised, 
 the ears forward, one slender paw uplifted. Now 
 there are three courses open to him : to fly, to 
 stay, to creep underground. But, again, the fox 
 does not dwell on the horrors of the present, as 
 a sensitive man or timid woman might do. During 
 the flight he has the refuge he is seeking in his 
 mind, and the best way there, which he takes, 
 as we have seen, by the aid of a very minute 
 memory of the objects on the way. He regulates 
 his pace partly by the sound of the pack, partly by 
 the knowledge he has of the state of the scent. At 
 first he has, I think, no terrors : his main object is to 
 reach a place where he can avoid disturbance. It is 
 not absolutely certain that, so long as his powers are 
 in full activity, he realises the fact that he is being 
 pursued, or the intentions of his pursuers. When, 
 however, he begins to fail, when one after another 
 his familiar refuges are closed against him, then h;s 
 intelligence works to find other means of escape. He 
 is conscious of his failing strength, of the nearness of 
 his foes, and a desire to find a refuge anywhere seizes 
 him. Then it is that foxes seek strange hiding-places,
 
 62 THE FOX 
 
 and often with success. Once a fox climbed a 
 thatched roof and crouched close to the chimneys. It 
 was cold weather and the chimneys were warm, and 
 there he remained until the next day. His footmarks 
 were found in a sprinkling of snow that fell in the 
 night. Another fox took refuge in a pigstye, where 
 there were a sow and a litter of piglings. No one 
 thought of looking there, but a farm lad going to 
 feed the pigs in the morning saw the fox come out 
 and with a gay swish of his brush canter off. 
 
 But no doubt there comes a moment when, at the 
 end of a long chase, his strength exhausted and wiles 
 expended, a sense of his fate reaches him. When 
 his enemies, the crows and magpies, swoop and 
 chatter over his head, and the cry of the hounds takes 
 a shriller, angrier note, in tones which in the jungle 
 language speak of their eagerness for blood in a way 
 that he understands, then, doubtless, he realises his 
 danger. I have seen a fox turn in a dry ditch and, 
 facing his foes, die fighting. In any case the end 
 is swift, and for the fox it is the price he pays for all 
 those things hunting his prey, love, and seclusion 
 he likes best. But never at any moment of the chase 
 can he feel what a man would feel. The mind of the 
 animal cannot form the image to clothe his misery. 
 His feelings are by so much less painful, as they are
 
 THE MIND OF THE FOX 63 
 
 simpler, than ours would be. A man thinks of what 
 he is leaving ; a fox cannot do this. The long-drawn- 
 out end is only the fate of one here and there : more 
 often the chase is swift, short, and decisive, and the 
 fox is spared what is the most painful thing to him 
 the failure of his powers. A fox whose whole mind 
 is concentrated on living, whose whole joy is in the 
 successful carrying-out of the life to which he was 
 born, finds his pain in the sense of failure and weak- 
 ness. But against the pain and failure of the defeated 
 fox, may we not set without fancifulness the more 
 frequent case when the victory remains with him, 
 when he has outpaced, outwitted, and baffled his 
 foes, and can rejoice in his strength and swiftness ? I 
 think the many recorded instances where a fox has 
 been known, in the very heat of being hunted, to turn 
 aside to kill a weaker bird or animal, show at least 
 that his own character of the hunter is more present 
 to his mind than that of the hunted. 
 
 In this, as in many other things, a fox is a paradox, 
 for he probably owes his success in the struggle for 
 existence to the fact that he has been hunted since 
 the world began. He would not be so successful a 
 hunter had he not been hunted : were he not so 
 skilful a beast of prey, he would be more often a 
 victim of the chase.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOW TO PRESERVE FOXES 
 
 NOTHING is easier than to preserve foxes if we really 
 wish to do so. All the fox needs is to be let alone. 
 The covert should be kept as quiet as possible, and 
 neither dogs nor men be allowed to disturb it. The 
 best way to keep dogs out is to make the fences thick 
 and thorny and the undergrowth close and impene- 
 trable. The fox will creep about and make or find 
 his own tracks and smeuses where a dog will be 
 daunted by the thorns and briars. These coverts 
 are of course equally impenetrable by man. Such 
 thorn-coverts are Norton Gorse and Sheepthorns, 
 both in Mr. Fernie's country. All coverts should 
 be looked after most carefully, and the fences kept 
 in order. Three or four small coverts, each not 
 more than three acres in extent, will suffice, if 
 properly tended, to keep hounds employed for one 
 day in each fortnight. Foxes will be nearly always 
 forthcoming from them. A favourite spot in a
 
 HO IV TO PRESERVE FOXES 65 
 
 well-preserved country is seldom without a tenant. 
 Just as the trout is never wanting to the suitable 
 hover or the tiger to the jungle, so a fox is always 
 ready to take the place of one killed. 
 
 I know a particular corner of a wood not far from the 
 boundary fence, where for several seasons an old dog 
 fox used to make his lair by day. The place was 
 secluded, and yet the air reached it through a gap in 
 the trees. From one point the fox was visible to a man 
 on horseback who knew where to look for him. One 
 day it may be that he was getting old, and his senses 
 were not so keen as in the past the fox was dropped 
 on, though he dodged the pack for a few yards. 
 The following autumn when riding past the wood I 
 was startled for a moment to see what looked like 
 the old dog fox curled up asleep in his usual place. 
 Then I remembered how all beasts, birds, and fishes 
 of prey have their haunts, and how a favourite spot is 
 almost invariably filled up. 
 
 Thus all we have to do is to keep suitable places 
 undisturbed, and the foxes will make their homes 
 there. Since we desire not only to have foxes, but 
 good ones, the less we interfere with them the better. 
 We can indeed increase the number of foxes in our 
 coverts by artificial means, but wild foxes cannot be 
 manufactured. The degeneracy of a fox begins when 
 
 F
 
 66 THE FOX 
 
 we preserve him by artificial means, and increases in 
 direct proportion to the use of them. The wilder the 
 animal, the better the chase. An animal is only perfectly 
 wild when he is left to his own resources at all times. 
 
 Of course we know that nowadays in many 
 countries there would be no foxes at all if no aids to 
 preservation were used, and hunting is kept up by 
 artificial earths, imported foxes, and hand-fed cubs. 
 Unfortunately both these last introduce mange, a 
 scourge which threatens the prosperity of hunting ; 
 nor does it seem likely that the disease will be 
 stamped out while the causes remain. Of these, 
 Masters of Hounds and owners of coverts can control 
 some. The supply of foxes from foreign countries is 
 a large trade. No one ever acknowledges to turning 
 down any other than Scotch foxes. Nevertheless the 
 little red French, Belgian, and German foxes (as a 
 recent circular has made clear) are very common, and 
 have done no good to our native breed. 
 
 But the greatest mischief of all is that dealers 
 bring foxes over in infected crates and store them in 
 infected cages. 
 
 The mange is a disease so persistent, so subtle, and 
 so destructive, that when once it has taken possession 
 of a range of kennels or cages nothing but fire will 
 exterminate it.
 
 HOW TO PRESERVE FOXES 67 
 
 As foxes must be imported, it is a pity to 
 waste the fine store of gallant Scotch, Welsh, and 
 other breeds from those parts where no hounds are 
 kept. But they should travel in special crates, and 
 these be made firewood of after one journey. The 
 least relaxation of vigilance and the mischief is done. 
 Another cause of mange is that foxes are frequently 
 penned in most insanitary places. As we have seen, 
 the fox is, perhaps, not the most cleanly of animals 
 in some of its habits, and in a confined space disease 
 is soon set up. It is nowadays quite a common 
 practice for keepers to kill off the old vixens as soon 
 as the cubs can feed themselves. The cubs are then 
 penned in any convenient place and fed on rabbits 
 and sometimes on raw meat. When the hounds come, 
 cubs are let out as required. Such cubs are nearly 
 always diseased and cannot possibly show sport. 
 The only way to have good healthy foxes is to pre- 
 serve old vixens, and every year this is done less and 
 less. Young vixens have not the knowledge and ex- 
 perience of old foxes, and their litters will never be as 
 well fed, as well taught, or have such a wide range as 
 will thoss of the older ones. There are many coverts 
 where there is never an old fox except a visiting dog 
 fox in the spring, and it is only by accident that we 
 ever enjoy a really good run from such places.
 
 68 THE FOX 
 
 Instances have been known of whole countries 
 devastated by mange from one of the pestilential 
 pits often made use of by keepers. There are many 
 more of them than we suppose. In one case a well- 
 known hunting man was walking around with a friend. 
 They had visited the kennels and thepheasantries, when 
 he noticed an old hut. ' What is in there ? ' he asked. 
 ' Oh, nothing, only some things we do not want,' said 
 the host. Yet, as they passed, a most unmistakable 
 whiff of fox reached the nostrils of the hunting man. 
 Taking an opportunity, he slipped back and found 
 a whole litter of cubs under the floor of the hut in a 
 dark, foul little hole. It was a fine wild moorland 
 country, but what wonder that seven-and-twenty dead 
 foxes covered with mange were picked up in the 
 course of the next two seasons ! If this could happen 
 where, after all, the shooting did not amount to 
 very much, what must occur where pheasants are 
 reared by the thousand ? 
 
 Another cause of mange is the habit indulged 
 in of peppering a fox with small shot to frighten him 
 off a particular beat. The fox may not, often does 
 not, die of the injuries, but the shock and the pellets 
 lodged under the skin set up conditions favourable to 
 mange. For mange there is no cure, but the disease
 
 can be eradicated by killing off the infected foxes, 
 stopping all the earths permanently, and perhaps, 
 above all, by allowing the foxes to live in healthy, 
 natural conditions, without interference or assistance. 
 
 But mange is not the only difficulty in the way of 
 the preservation of foxes. 
 
 Traps in some parts of England are becoming a 
 serious danger. In that wild and beautiful district 
 where the Devon and Somerset Staghounds hunt the 
 red deer, there is rough, but very real, foxhunting. 
 On Exmoor we can still see hounds drag up to the 
 fox's kennel as our forefathers did. Once upon a 
 time in the famous days of the Stars of the West and 
 of Mr. Nicholas Snow there were plenty of foxes, 
 while on another part of Exmoor a famous Master of 
 the old Devonshire school reigned over a hunt 
 which has just been given up. The West Somerset 
 country, which was founded by Colonel Luttrell 
 in 1824, suffers in some degree from the evil. It 
 may be said that trapping in the open is illegal ; but 
 when a country is wild it is not possible to overlook it, 
 and the damage done to foxhunting is in any case very 
 great, and in some parts of the West foxes are very 
 scarce indeed. It is necessary that foxes should have 
 earths except in those countries where they are
 
 70 THE FOX 
 
 stub-bred, and the vixens lay up litters in a convenient 
 lair or a nest above ground. 
 
 We often hear complaints about earth-stopping, 
 but it is well to recollect the difficulties that have to 
 be surmounted. 
 
 The fox is not very regular in his habits; but 
 as a rule, from about 10 P.M. to 3 A.M. are the 
 hours between which he is abroad. Neverthe- 
 less a great deal depends on the weather, and how 
 soon he finds a sufficiency of food. A fox does not 
 at any time come home and go to bed regularly. 
 Most dog foxes remain above ground and, except 
 when they are hunted or the weather is bad, do not 
 go to ground at all. In mild seasons we may find 
 foxes asleep anywhere, and everyone has instances to 
 tell of foxes fast asleep in the open. I remember 
 when I was hunting in Oxfordshire a well-known 
 covert was drawn blank with the usual sounds as 
 hounds were drawn out. I rode away over a ploughed 
 field, and there, out in the open curled up fast asleep, 
 lay a fine dog fox. 
 
 The danger of stopping foxes in is not perhaps 
 so very great, yet no doubt some foxes are stopped 
 in, and I fear suffocated, every season. The old 
 system of earth-stoppers, where the hunt kept one 
 man who was responsible for the work of others and
 
 HOW TO PRESERVE FOXES 71 
 
 whose pleasure and pride it was to show sport, was 
 better than the present, when in most places keepers 
 and others stop, or do not stop, the earths. But, 
 again, shooting interests make landowners and 
 keepers unwilling to allow anyone the run of the 
 coverts. The picturesque old earth-stopper, with his 
 rough pony, his lantern, and his terriers, is a relic of 
 past days found only in some old-established hunts. 
 
 There is another point in the preservation of 
 foxes, and that is, the killing powers of the pack. 
 As a general rule, it is sound policy to kill as many 
 foxes as we can. There are many reasons for this. 
 Any given district will only carry a certain stock of 
 foxes. If they are too numerous, they are driven 
 into bad ways and become haunters of back-gardens 
 and pigstyes, robbers of hen-roosts. Farmers, 
 keepers, and cottagers maintain an interested watch 
 upon the local pack, and note whether or not they 
 kill foxes. It will be found that there is no 
 such discouragement to fox-preserving as the know- 
 ledge that the pack does not kill a fair proportion 
 of the foxes it finds. A friend of mine who is a 
 very keen sportsman and a first-rate amateur hunts- 
 man took a country. He proceeded, in his first 
 season, to kill the foxes at what the members of the 
 hunt thought a most alarming rate. There would
 
 72 THE FOX 
 
 be, they said, no foxes at all before the end of the 
 season. They had not a single blank day, and the 
 sport was better than it had ever been. Next season 
 there were an unusually large number of litters in the 
 country. People will not disturb vixens and cubs if 
 they think that the Master is doing his share in killing 
 them and thus keeping down the numbers. Then, too, 
 the Master who hunts his country equally and gives 
 the good and the bad alike a fair share of attention 
 will find his stock of foxes increase. 
 
 The Vale is better for sport, but places like Pinch- 
 me-Near are the nurseries for strong wild foxes. The 
 forest foxes travel far and wide in the spring. Probably 
 very few woodland districts are hunted enough. 
 They are useful for foxes, excellent for hounds, but 
 trying for horses, and uninteresting to a great many 
 men. Foxes have a tendency, when much hunted, to 
 collect in woodlands that are little disturbed. If they 
 become over-numerous, if hounds come several times, 
 and because of a bad scent, or on account of the 
 presence of too many foxes, they do not kill, the 
 foxes often meet another fate. Most foxhunting is 
 not merely a great sport, but is really an effectual 
 means of keeping the foxes down, as the following 
 figures will show. It was stated some years ago, 
 that the Government of the colony of Victoria had in
 
 HOW TO PRESERVE FOXES 73 
 
 seven years paid rewards for heads of 130,000 foxes. 
 As nearly as I can estimate, hounds in England kill 
 about 15,000 or 16,000 foxes a year, including cubs. 
 If we multiply these numbers by seven, we shall find 
 that 112,000 is the total, so that, apparently, even 
 considered as a means of making war on foxes and 
 keeping down their numbers, hunting is successful 
 
 This brings us to an important matter in the pre- 
 servation of foxes. What was originally meant by 
 preserving foxes was this, that in consideration of 
 the sport given by the fox before hounds, he was 
 only to be kept down by them. But hounds were to 
 keep him down, and this understanding is still at the 
 foundation of fox-preserving. People who are to be 
 trusted about wild foxes object to those that are turned- 
 down, and not altogether without justice. It may be 
 said that hunting is to a certain extent decadent in 
 those countries where wild foxes are not to be found. 
 But it is in any case clear that one factor in inducing 
 people to preserve foxes is that the pack should kill 
 them down. When spring comes round the stock 
 should be sufficient but not overwhelming. It is in 
 the spring that foxes do most damage. Of course 
 the question what is a sufficient stock of foxes is 
 one on which opinions differ. Writing from a hunt- 
 ing man's point of view, we might say with Beckford
 
 74 THE FOX 
 
 that a man might as well complain of having too 
 much money as of having too many foxes, but there 
 are other people to be considered. What would be 
 a reasonable stock for Leicestershire would be too 
 many to expect in some provincial countries with due 
 regard to other interests. But even in Leicester- 
 shire sport depends upon killing foxes. The two best 
 Leicestershire huntsmen of our day, Tom Firr and 
 Arthur Thatcher, were and are killing huntsmen. It 
 was said of the former that a fox never escaped him 
 more than twice, and the latter told me in the cub- 
 hunting season of 1900 that his dog pack alone had 
 been out twenty-nine times and killed twenty-nine 
 foxes. 
 
 This question of the stock of foxes leads us to 
 the problem of whether hunting and shooting can 
 exist in the same country without interfering with 
 one another. The answer is clearly that they cannot 
 unless the supporters of each be prepared to give up 
 something for the benefit of the other. But the 
 stakes are not equal. To preserve foxes fairly that 
 is, to keep a stock of old wild foxes (mere cubs and 
 turned-down-for-the-occasion foxes are no use) will 
 cost the preserver money, slightly reduce his bag, and 
 give his keeper trouble, for which, however, in most 
 cases, the latter is paid by the Master of Hounds.
 
 HOW TO PRESERVE FOXES 75 
 
 On the other hand if no foxes, or bad foxes only, 
 are kept, the hunting men lose their sport altogether 
 and waste the money they have spent. But without 
 entering into a controversy which no arguments will 
 settle, because the solution depends not on reason but 
 on the character and the position of the contending 
 parties, let us try to see what real mischief foxes do 
 to shooting and in what way it may be minimised. 
 
 The damage done by foxes on a preserved shoot- 
 ing may be classed under the following heads. 
 
 Foxes take a certain number of full-grown birds. 
 They are destructive in the nesting season and espe- 
 cially to young broods just hatched. A fox in a 
 covert, and more particularly in a warm corner, spoils 
 the shooting of that particular covert for the day. 
 
 Lastly, where there are foxes hounds will come, 
 and a pack of hounds spending an hour or so in a 
 woodland will drive out every living thing and let in 
 perhaps some characters that the keeper does not 
 wish to see there. We have seen that in order to 
 preserve foxes it is necessary to keep the coverts 
 quiet, and it is no less necessary if we want to have 
 pheasants or indeed any kind of game. 
 
 Now if we take these in order it is quite clear that 
 of full-grown healthy birds the fox cannot take many. 
 The birds come down after the foxes have laid up for the
 
 76 THE FOX 
 
 day, and they go to roost before he comes out, so that 
 the fox and the pheasant are not often brought into 
 contact. Nevertheless foxes do catch some pheasants. 
 But the greatest amount of mischief is in the nesting 
 season. Pheasants lay about the end of March or 
 beginning of April, so that the birds are sitting and 
 the broods are hatching out just at the time when the 
 fox's necessity is greatest. Sitting birds are dry and 
 flavourless, and probably these are not looked for 
 unless the need is severe. But no doubt when the 
 young birds are hatched out the smell of the dis- 
 carded egg-shells often betrays them to the fox. 
 Against this we may fairly place as part consideration 
 the useful work done by the fox in keeping down 
 more destructive vermin. Foxes hunt eagerly for 
 and kill stoats, weasels, and the old hedgerow rat in 
 whose burrow has been discovered no fewer than 
 fourteen wild ducks' eggs. Rats are pests to which 
 nothing is sacred, nothing comes amiss, and the fox 
 is a most accomplished rat-catcher. But even if we 
 allow that a fox does more harm than good and kills 
 more than he saves, the damage is not so great as to 
 make it worth while for a good sportsman to spoil 
 his neighbour's fun. At the same time hunting 
 men ought not to forget that the pheasant-preserver 
 who keeps wild foxes does no doubt make a very.
 
 HO W TO PRESERVE FOXES 77 
 
 considerable, though indirect, pecuniary contribution 
 to the hunt. 
 
 As to the presence of foxes in pheasant-coverts 
 at the time of the shoot, no doubt the fox is often 
 a spoil-sport, but his presence there is partly the 
 fault of half-hearted preserving. The owner and his 
 keeper do not shoot foxes, but they keep hounds out 
 of the coverts until after these have been shot through. 
 The keeper feeds the foxes, which become fat and lazy 
 and do not readily leave their haunts. It does no harm 
 to draw large woods up to ten days or a fortnight 
 before they are shot. Indeed it does good, for birds 
 fed in a covert scarcely ever fly far except to go 
 to roost, and the hoiinds move them but do not 
 drive them away. The birds cannot know much 
 country or fly far. The case, no doubt, is different in 
 a small shooting bounded by the fields of pot-hunting 
 neighbours. But in large coverts with hand-reared 
 pheasants it may be considered certain that drawing 
 the woods and driving out the foxes is on the whole, 
 to say the least, no disadvantage to the owner and 
 does not in any appreciable degree, if at all, diminish 
 the bag. 
 
 One fact, however, remains, and this is that no 
 man can preserve foxes unless he allows his coverts 
 to be regularly hunted. The hounds must kill off
 
 78 THE FOX 
 
 the weakly and bad foxes. If a covert be not 
 drawn, foxes in a hunting country take refuge there. 
 Then the owner and keeper both feel that they have 
 more than their share of foxes and begin to reduce 
 them to a more manageable number. But they are of 
 course in fact killing the foxes that belong to other 
 parts of the hunt, and such a country is sure to be short 
 of foxes sooner or later. Whilst, however, foxes in 
 pheasant-coverts will do some harm and idle keepers 
 will exaggerate the mischief because foxes give them 
 trouble, it has always been the custom for owners of 
 coverts to help their foxhunting neighbours, feeling 
 justly that while with the shooting man it is only a 
 question of more or less, the very existence of fox- 
 hunting depends on hounds being allowed to draw 
 coverts without restrictions, and to find old wild foxes 
 when they come. This is one of the neighbourly 
 amenities of English country life which are sometimes 
 violated, but never without loss to the whole country- 
 side. But it is a matter for which there is no law and 
 as to which no rules can be laid down : it depends 
 entirely on good feeling on both sides.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 
 
 THE homes and haunts of the fox vary according to 
 its age, sex, and surroundings. The earth or burrow 
 is used by the fox, in common with the rest of the 
 Canidce, primarily as a shelter for the vixens and 
 cubs. The fox is not, as are the badger and the rabbit, 
 an underground dweller. In some parts of England 
 and Scotland, the vixen lays up her cubs above 
 ground. When the young ones are able to run 
 about she removes them to some convenient shelter, 
 and as soon as the dog foxes grow up, they wander 
 away and set up for themselves. Most of them have 
 a favourite kennel, to which it has been said they 
 return always at night. But it seems more likely 
 that the fox, having killed and eaten, makes a tem- 
 porary kennel not very far away in some convenient 
 covert. Thus a fox may be found anywhere within 
 his hunting-ground, which is wider or narrower ac- 
 cording to the number of his kind in the district, and
 
 8o THE FOX 
 
 the abundance or scarcity of food. We often fail to 
 find foxes in favourite coverts simply because the 
 inhabitants are on some other part of their beat. 
 Take for example such coverts as Gartree Hill or 
 Ranksboro'. No one would doubt that everything 
 was done to preserve foxes, or that there are in fact 
 always foxes which make these famous coverts their 
 headquarters. Yet every now and then they are 
 drawn blank. It is not fair to assume that there has 
 been foul play if any covert under a hundred acres 
 is without a fox. Favourite places are much harried, 
 and huntsmen are not always careful enough not to 
 stain small coverts by killing foxes within their boun- 
 daries. The fox, of all animals, is the most ready to 
 learn by experience, and his keen nose warns him for 
 a long time that murder has been done on one of his 
 race. He therefore avoids the fatal spot. If, how- 
 ever, we draw a large extent of woodlands blank, it 
 is nearly certain that the keeper or owner is not 
 dealing fairly with the foxes. In suitable woodlands, 
 there ought generally to be foxes or some trace of 
 them. In addition to his kennel, in which the fox 
 lies up (some dry spot well sheltered where the 
 rays of the sun can penetrate), foxes, at all events 
 where they are much hunted, have a more secure 
 refuge at hand. To this shelter they resort when
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX Si 
 
 driven by stress of weather or the pressure of the 
 chase. The refuge may not always be close to the 
 kennel. Indeed it may be some miles away. The 
 fox has to trust to his speed and endurance to save 
 him. When a fox does not want to be found, but 
 goes straight across the middle of the fields, regard- 
 less of the direction of the wind, we may be sure that 
 he has a refuge in his mind. If he is not killed in 
 twenty minutes he will be safe under ground. When 
 food becomes scarce near one lair, the fox shifts his 
 ground. 
 
 Foxes grow very restless in much-hunted coun- 
 tries; sometimes becoming corrupted by plenty, 
 and, finding the dust-heaps and pig-styes near a 
 village excellent foraging ground, they settle there 
 and are soon ' lost to name and fame.' Such foxes 
 seldom run far, yet are very difficult to kill. They 
 are often much more numerous in the neighbourhood 
 of large towns than would be supposed. Every- 
 one who has hunted with the South Quorn (Mr. 
 Fernie's) hounds will remember how many foxes there 
 are in the neighbourhood of the suburbs of Leicester. 
 
 Another very favourite haunt of foxes is a range 
 of cliffs by the seashore. These are secure refuges 
 for the vixen and cubs, and foxes find a good deal 
 of food along the seashore. They may often be seen 
 
 G
 
 82 THE FOX 
 
 hunting there. Masters of Hounds naturally dislike 
 cliffs, as hounds are very apt to fall over while in 
 pursuit of the fox, and the Masters and huntsmen of 
 the West Somerset, Holderness, and Eastbourne Fox- 
 hounds could tell us of many a good hound lost, and 
 of many a narrow escape the pack has had. 
 
 But though Masters and huntsmen dread such 
 adventures, the cliff-haunting foxes are probably a 
 source of supply to the country round, and the cubs 
 reared spread over the district and settle down, in 
 their turn to raise inland a new generation of wild 
 foxes. 
 
 The first generation is apt to go back to the cliffs, 
 but often give a good run in so doing. Slowly Wood, 
 a big covert well known to the followers of the 
 Quantock Staghounds, used at one time to be a great 
 place for foxes. Before the West Somerset Hunt 
 was fairly established by the late Colonel Luttrell, 
 of Kilve Court, the covert was drawn by harriers, 
 and the foxes went right away for Hurlstone Point, 
 some seven miles off, and were never caught. The 
 harrier Masters tried several dodges, such as putting 
 relays of hounds on likely points of the route. Nor 
 was a fox killed fairly from Slowly until Colonel 
 LuttrelPs hounds ran into one, to their Master's great 
 delight.
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 83 
 
 There is a difficulty about thinning down cliff 
 foxes, and one Master of Hounds was very much 
 taken aback, on asking permission from the agent to 
 a certain estate to hunt some of them, to receive a 
 letter asking ' where he would like the guns placed.' 
 Mr. Nicholas Snow, when he hunted Exmoor, used 
 regularly to worry the cliff foxes in the summer, in 
 the hope, doubtless fulfilled, that they would be 
 driven inland, and help to stock the Exmoor country. 
 Mr. L. Bligh and the Minehead Harriers success- 
 fully work parts of the West Somerset Cliff for foxes, 
 and no doubt drive a certain number inland. Un- 
 luckily, the prevalence of rabbit-trapping is in the 
 West country a serious danger to foxhunting. I 
 never heard that steel traps set in the open as they 
 often are distinguished between rabbits and foxes. 
 Whole tracts of what was the most sporting country 
 in the West have been cleared of foxes, and rabbit- 
 trapping is the chief cause. 
 
 When once a fox family has comfortably settled 
 down inland, it does not, I think, return to the 
 cliffs. I do not say that a fox run near to the sea- 
 shore will not take any refuge that is handy. It is his 
 nature ; but I do not think that foxes migrate from 
 inland coverts to the seashore. ' My foxes have all 
 gone to the cliffs,' a reason which was given to me 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE FOX 
 
 once for the scarcity of foxes on a certain estate, is 
 probably incorrect. There were foxes in the cliffs, 
 there were more in the coverts. This was no doubt 
 true. But the cliff foxes had always been there, and 
 the inland foxes had been shot or trapped by a 
 keeper of the kind who shoots foxes because he has 
 nothing else to fire at for the scarcity of game was 
 as noteworthy as the absence of foxes. There was 
 not as much as if there had been no attempt at 
 preserving. A keeper can always have foxes if his 
 master really wishes, though it may be freely allowed 
 that they give him trouble. An efficient man will 
 always have them in his coverts. The keeper who 
 has none is either inefficient or dishonest, perhaps 
 both. Were I the owner of large coverts and there 
 was not a good head of game, and yet the coverts 
 were drawn blank when the hounds came, I should 
 feel that it was a case for a change of keepers. The 
 man to be dreaded in a hunting country is the dis- 
 honest, inefficient keeper, who is practising on the 
 weakness or ignorance of his master. 
 
 The various excuses, such as the death of all 
 foxes through mange, the migration to cliffs or other 
 refuges, are, to speak plainly, simply untrue. But in 
 many of the best-managed shootings there is no 
 question of foxes. They are there, and, like the
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 85 
 
 keeper mentioned by the late Duke of Beaufort, they 
 have litters and old foxes too. All of us who are 
 sportsmen by training owe too much to the keeper 
 friends of our youth to sweep into one condemnation 
 a class of men who no more deserve to be judged by 
 the dishonest and inefficient members of their profes- 
 sion than do, for example, soldiers, sailors, or lawyers. 
 Foxes, however, as a rule, make their homes in 
 coverts, natural or artificial, and the provision and 
 care of these is a very important matter for the 
 prosperity of a foxhunting country. Although it may 
 be said that the best thing we can do for foxhunting 
 is to leave foxes alone, injudicious friendship and 
 hostility are equally injurious to sport ; but this does 
 not apply to artificial coverts. The best of these 
 really are formed by allowing or assisting Nature to 
 have her own way, and the thickest and most imper- 
 vious coverts are some of the 'artificial' coverts of 
 which there are so many in Leicestershire and North- 
 amptonshire. But all coverts, whether natural or 
 artificial, require some care in order that they may 
 have shelter or lying for the foxes. Woods, large and 
 small, and gorse coverts have a tendency to become 
 thin, and when there is no undergrowth, and the 
 covert is open to every passing cur, the fox soon 
 leaves it for some more convenient shelter.
 
 86 THE FOX 
 
 As will be seen later, artificial earths are some- 
 times necessary evils. But the making and care of 
 coverts is one of the great means of sport. 
 
 How much we owe to the small coverts of 
 Leicestershire, which link together such delightful 
 stretches of grass ! It is quite clear that foxes, when 
 hunted, will not go into a country where there are no 
 refuges. They may, and indeed do, go foraging where 
 there are no fox haunts or shelters, but they do not 
 run to them as a rule. 
 
 I can only recall two instances, in my own ex- 
 perience or in reading, of foxes travelling except with 
 some covert or refuge in their minds. Once many 
 years ago, with the Southwold, I recollect a fox going 
 away with five couple of hounds from Tumby Wood. 
 The Master was with them, one whipper-in, and the 
 late Rev. Edward Rawnsley, a rider to hounds who 
 had fine hands and good judgment. He was seldom 
 left when hounds ran. The line was over the fen 
 country, flat, open grass-fields, divided by enormous 
 drains. The fox ran the bridges made for the cattle 
 to pass over, and his followers jumped the draw- rails 
 which divided the bridges from the fields. The fox 
 was killed on the outskirts of some farm buildings. 
 
 But doubtless he was like that fox in the late 
 Duke of Beaufort's time that disappeared near some
 
 'THE FOX WAS SEEN TO SWIM BACK'
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 87 
 
 outhouses and was seen later to jump out of a 
 pigstye. 
 
 In both cases the fox was probably accustomed 
 to forage round the farm, and perhaps to lie up in 
 some convenient and unsuspected corner of the stack- 
 yard or barns. These, however, are exceptions, and 
 unless there are quiet coverts to be found, foxes will 
 not cross certain lines of country. 
 
 Fox-haunts are of three kinds. Woodlands, which 
 need no care except judicious planting, if they are kept 
 quiet. Where game is preserved this is of course done, 
 and foxes swarm if treated fairly. Indeed, it may be 
 said that if foxes are not found in preserved game- 
 coverts they have been destroyed. The late Duke of 
 Beaufort relates in his Diary that ' Mr. Garland [Mr. 
 Holford's keeper] has had twenty-one litters of cubs 
 in two years,' and in 1856 the Badminton Hounds 
 killed eleven and a half brace of foxes on Mr. 
 Holford's property. The Stoneleigh coverts are also 
 instances of well-preserved pheasant-coverts abound- 
 ing in foxes. Every place that has or can shelter 
 a fox should be cared for, however small. How 
 often we find foxes in tiny spinnies, small copses, or 
 wooded ravines ! It matters little how small a place 
 it is if it be kept quiet. I knew a covert, a small 
 triangular bit of rough growth in the corner of a
 
 88 THE FOX 
 
 field, barely three-quarters of an acre in extent. 
 This we had securely fenced round so that dogs 
 could not get in. We never entered it even when 
 rabbit-shooting. Naturally, there was quite a rab- 
 bit's sanctuary, but that was rather an attraction 
 to the fox, and there was nearly always one there. 
 Indeed, we might adapt to fox-preserving a well- 
 known proverb, and say, ' Look after the spinnies 
 and the woods will take care of themselves.' 
 
 There is a gorse in the West Somerset 
 country which is so well cared for by the owner 
 of the farm that it has been drawn forty times in 
 succession, and a fox found every time. Again, an 
 able writer in 'Baily,' ' C. R.,' says : ' We know of one 
 small estate in the North of England of less than 
 two thousand acres in extent that has hardly been 
 drawn blank within the memory of the present 
 generation. Nor is the estate well off for covert, not 
 more than forty or fifty acres of it being fox-shelter 
 of any description. There are three fir, spruce, and 
 larch plantations of about ten acres apiece, a long, 
 narrow dingle, which is no more than no yards wide, 
 and some half-dozen ornamental plantations of from 
 one to three acres apiece.' The author goes on to 
 tell how when beating for hares in a little coppice of 
 spruce firs, with an undergrowth of heather, out came
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 89 
 
 a pig, a fox, another pig, a second fox, and then the 
 hares. ' C. R.,' whose remarks are practical, and whose 
 observations and experiences with artificial coverts 
 "agree with my own, remarks on the excellence of 
 spruce-fir coverts. One reason why a fox likes spruce 
 trees is because they often grow in strange forms 
 and are easy to climb. Foxes are very fond of climb- 
 ing trees when they can, but the trunk must have 
 a slight slope. In Australia, the foxes are accused 
 of the destruction of the beautiful lyre-bird. It is 
 said that they run up the trees and destroy the 
 nests, and this seems quite probable. There is 
 nothing a fox will not eat, and nothing within his 
 power that he will not do. His intelligence is 
 generally equal to the occasion, and if a fox found 
 himself where trees were, with his powers to climb, 
 or perhaps, more correctly, to run or scramble up, 
 and birds' nests in those trees which afforded that 
 greatest of all fox delicacies, an egg just on the point 
 of hatching, it would not be long before he became 
 partly arboreal in his habits. 
 
 Gorse coverts are favourite ones for foxes. There 
 are few countries which have not some gorse coverts, 
 the very name of which is suggestive of sport. Not 
 all coverts which are called ' gorses ' are now planted 
 with furze, and not a few blackthorn coverts are to be
 
 90 THE FOX 
 
 found in Leicestershire. The richness of the soil 
 causes the thorn to grow vigorously, and grass and 
 undergrowth spring up, forming a shelter for foxes. 
 Real gorse has the advantage of thriving well in a 
 poor sandy soil. In making a gorse covert the slope 
 of a hill facing south should be chosen, not only 
 because the fox prefers such a situation but also 
 because gorse thrives best on land with that aspect. 
 Although gorse grows freely where once established, 
 the young plants require care : they are somewhat 
 delicate and tender at first and grow but slowly. The 
 land in which the gorse is to be planted should be 
 thoroughly cleaned and all twitch-grass and weeds 
 removed. It is a good plan to cut off the top and 
 burn it when the land is foul. The ground should 
 be ploughed over thoroughly. The seed may be 
 drilled, and the ground round the young shoots must 
 be carefully hoed and weeded until the plants have 
 taken a good start. After a time gorse coverts become 
 very hollow and of course cease to hold foxes. A 
 section should be burned or cut every year. Gorse 
 requires much care, but is very useful, being excellent 
 food for cattle and horses. Besides the gorse or 
 thorn covert, any group of trees may be made attractive 
 to foxes by a little attention. Sloe, common clematis 
 and mountain ash may be planted, and broom and
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 91 
 
 heather sown broadcast; but the rabbits should be 
 wired out, as indeed they ought to be from all young 
 coverts and plantations whatever the nature of such 
 coverts may be. Stiff fencing round them is im- 
 portant. 
 
 Osier-beds are also favourite haunts for foxes who 
 have no objection to the neighbourhood of water so 
 long as they have a dry spot to kennel in ; indeed 
 water is very convenient for the fox, so much food 
 does he obtain on the banks of a stream or lake. 
 Foxes can and do catch wild duck, springing at them 
 as they take flight, and once when a lake near a house 
 where I was staying was frozen over, a fox or foxes 
 actually attacked the swans and killed, but did not 
 carry off, a young swan. We found it afterwards 
 bitten through the neck. The osier covert has this 
 advantage on an estate, that it is a crop of some 
 value. I have always noticed that such coverts in 
 the midland counties, where I have seen them, are 
 particularly favoured by foxes. 
 
 From the question of artificial coverts we pass to 
 that of artificial earths. The covert is an assistance 
 to nature, a permission to plant-growth to have its 
 own way. All our care is to keep the shelter thick 
 and give the foxes a secure home. We place them, 
 indeed, where coverts were not, in order that we may
 
 92 THE FOX 
 
 have more foxes and that they may run over certain 
 lines of country. The artificial covert is as little of 
 an interference with nature as may be and yet it 
 has its disadvantages. A century ago, Nimrod 
 complained that, owing to the number of artificial 
 coverts, foxes were apt to run short. Everyone who 
 has hunted with the Quorn on a Friday must have 
 noticed how apt the foxes are to run rings in that 
 most charming district : there are so many convenient 
 artificial coverts. There can be no doubt that in 
 Nimrod's time there was far less covert of any kind in 
 Leicestershire than there is now. The country was 
 more open and fences were rarer. Under those 
 circumstances foxes had necessarily to travel further. 
 Nimrod speaks of a fox found at Billesdon Coplow 
 and killed at Ranksboro'. That would be a very 
 unlikely thing to happen now. 
 
 With many artificial coverts and well-preserved 
 foxes, hounds are liable to change frequently, 
 and do so as a matter of fact. As a well-known 
 midland M.F.H. once put it to me : ' If you 
 run a fox more than ten minutes in this country, 
 the chances are that he is another.' But in 
 modern foxhunting certain and quick finds and sharp 
 bursts are delighted in. If the country and the pace 
 are good the objection to a ring is purely imaginary.
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 93 
 
 There are many people who never know they have 
 ridden one till they find themselves back at the 
 starting-point. 
 
 There has probably been some change in the last 
 century in the length of runs, but not so much as might 
 be supposed. The story of any typical Leicestershire 
 run which took place nearly a century ago might 
 have been written yesterday, and will be found indeed 
 to be very characteristic of present-day sport among 
 the artificial coverts of High Leicestershire. 
 
 There are, perhaps, quite as many long runs 
 now as of old, the difference being that when foxes 
 were scarce only one fox was pursued from start to 
 finish : nowadays there are often three or four 
 hunted during the run. This is due not alone to the 
 fact if fact it be that foxes run shorter than of old, 
 but also to the pressure of the crowd. If the fox 
 turn short back, as foxes will do, when they have 
 reached the limits of the country they know, or if the 
 hounds and huntsman are swept on after the pack 
 have lost the line, there is nothing to do but to cast 
 forward, and a fresh fox is often picked up. There is a 
 story of a modern Master who was going away along- 
 side his leading couples. ' That is not your hunted 
 
 fox,' said a friend. ' Perhaps not, but he d d soon 
 
 will be ! ' was the reply.
 
 94 THE FOX 
 
 The question of artificial earths is a different 
 one; it is an interference with nature. Most of 
 the foxes that take to them are hand-reared. A 
 litter of cubs is to be moved ; an artificial earth is 
 prepared, they are wired in, and fed for a time. 
 If the cubs once take to an earth, natural or arti- 
 ficial, they will come back to it as to a refuge in 
 time of trouble. Still more is this the case if a vixen 
 can be induced to lay up her cubs in one. I speak 
 with a good deal of diffidence about artificial earths, 
 not having had much to do with them, and I find a 
 considerable difference of opinion about them among 
 people of knowledge. The estimation of the value 
 of artificial earths ranges from the idea that they are 
 actually superior to the natural earth, in that they 
 are more easily kept clean, to that in which they are 
 regarded as necessary evils. 
 
 Again, there are some people who seem to have 
 had no difficulty with the foxes. They have made 
 an artificial earth, and a fox has taken possession of 
 it at once. Others have failed to induce foxes to 
 occupy them at all. Probably the truth is that where 
 foxes are found in artificial earths we are not told 
 everything. There are obvious reasons for not 
 publishing the situation of an artificial earth, or 
 talking too much about the introduction of foxes.
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 95 
 
 Yet there are countries which could not exist with- 
 out a supply of foxes from the outside, and artificial 
 earths. The truth is probably this, that so far as we 
 can avoid everything artificial with regard to foxes 
 and hunting, we shall have on the whole healthier, 
 stouter foxes, and better sport ; but that if we must 
 turn down foxes, by far the best plan is to make an 
 artificial earth, to obtain a vixen or a healthy litter, 
 to confine them just so long as is necessary, and then 
 leave them to themselves. As time goes on and our 
 artificial earth becomes overgrown and wild it will 
 differ hardly at all in the estimation of the foxes from 
 the natural earths. If a vixen be put down, it is wise 
 to remember that she is very jealous of any taint 
 of humanity when she is about to lay up her cubs. 
 She is quite capable of destroying the whole litter if 
 she is not treated very carefully. The less she sees 
 or smells of man the better. 
 
 There have been various forms of artificial earth, 
 and I give them here so that readers may see for 
 themselves, and choose, if they must make an earth, 
 that form which is best suited to their own locality 
 and the situation of their coverts. 
 
 But at this point the question arises, ' If I make 
 an artificial covert, should I put an artificial earth 
 into it ? ' It is not necessary to do so, and if we plant
 
 96 THE FOX 
 
 a gorse covert it is much better not. There must 
 necessarily be a track made by the person who stops 
 the earth, and this may lead others to know of it. 
 It is also likely that a fox might note the traces of 
 human interference and abandon the gorse for the day. 
 
 There is not the smallest necessity to have an 
 earth in any covert : the foxes will use the covert 
 just the same. Therefore the question of the 
 artificial earth has little or nothing to do with the 
 covert holding foxes, but it must be determined by 
 other considerations as to whether it should or should 
 not be made. 
 
 For general principles I cannot do better than refer 
 my reader to the Badminton volume on ' Hunting.' 
 It is there laid down that there should be (i) a south 
 aspect ; (2) a chalk soil ; (3) a dry situation ; (4) that 
 the chamber should be above the entrance; (5) that 
 the entrance should be too narrow to admit a terrier. 
 
 To this I should be inclined to add that there 
 ought to be facilities for getting at the chamber, and 
 that this should neither be too spacious nor too lofty. 
 Foxes are very apt to foul their earths, and as the fox 
 never makes the earth larger than it requires, so the 
 nearer we come to nature the better it will be for the 
 health of our foxes. 
 
 There should be a second exit, the mouth of
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 97 
 
 which may be lightly stopped with earth so that the 
 fox can scratch his way out. This exit should be 
 concealed by some bushes, so that if fox-stealers or 
 a wandering terrier invade the covert, the fox may be 
 able to slip away unobserved. Idle lads have been 
 known to spend Sunday afternoon disturbing earths 
 to try their terriers, or for the sake of sport. 
 
 The various forms of artificial earth are as follows : 
 I. A badger is caught, penned into a covert 
 which, by the way, is not very easy to do and kept 
 there till he has dug an earth. This sounds better and 
 is much easier in theory than it would be in practice. 
 I know of no instance of a badger so confined making 
 an earth, though badgers' earths are common enough, 
 and there are two within a mile and a half of the place 
 where I am writing. But they are rather a nuisance, 
 as they are difficult to stop, and as a matter of fact 
 two foxes went to ground in one the last time we 
 drew the neighbouring coverts. 
 
 II. The ' Field ' in 1877 gave the following method 
 of making an artificial earth, which, except that no 
 dimensions are given, seems to be practical. The 
 writer advises that a deep trench should be dug on 
 the sunny side of rising ground in the chosen covert. 
 The trench should be four feet deep and the same 
 width, being in a semi-circular form, with two entrances, 
 
 H
 
 98 THE FOX 
 
 and from the centre turning off into an oven or 
 den. Then 'lay a drain of very small tiles placed 
 on flat ones to prevent the rabbits digging in under 
 them. By this means the earth will be kept dry after 
 the heaviest rain. Having formed the large trench 
 in which the earth is to be made, lay the bottom 
 with large flat stones, taking care to build in the 
 chamber a kind of raised kennel in which the foxes 
 may lie secure and dry, having two or three spouts into 
 which the fox may stick himself with his head only 
 exposed in case of a terrier being sent in by a fox- 
 catcher.' I am inclined to th'nk that the fox might go 
 into these head first, and that a bolt-hole as described 
 above is better. 'The earth may then be built of 
 stones or bricks upon the floor, terminating at each 
 entrance in a hole of such a size as not to admit a 
 dog larger than a fox. The mouth should be made 
 with a heavy stone, or a large piece of timber, to 
 prevent its wearing away. A large mound of soil 
 should be heaped over the earth, and, for a better 
 protection, a quantity of dead covert placed on that. 
 Badgers should be caught if they take to the earth, as 
 they soon pull it down.' 
 
 This seems to me excellent, with the addition of 
 the blind bolt-hole suggested above. 
 
 III. In the same year another correspondent
 
 HOME AND HAUNTS OF THE FOX 99 
 
 advised two drains with entrances fourteen feet apart. 
 Lay a drain with eight-inch pipes and deepening to 
 the kennel, which should be about three feet in the 
 ground, three feet in diameter and eighteen inches 
 high. Choose a dry spot in an open part of a wood, 
 and if possible near water, so that the cubs can get to 
 it to drink. Procure a litter of cubs. One of the 
 vixens will very likely breed in the earth when grown 
 up to maturity. The tenants should not be stopped 
 out on hunting days during the first season. The 
 objection to this form is that the kennel is lower than 
 the entrance, and such an earth is difficult, if not im- 
 possible, to keep dry. 
 
 IV. Mr. T. Smith recommended two chambers, 
 one further in than the other, and two entrances. 
 This earth is in the form of an acute-angled triangle, 
 the apex being the further point of the earth from the 
 entrance. A base is formed by an imaginary line 
 outside the earth and the entrances are at the two 
 extreme points of the base, both sides' covered with 
 two-inch slabs, width nine inches, height eight inches. 
 The diameter of the two kennels three feet. This 
 does not seem to me so good as No. I. 
 
 Again, another very favourite artificial refuge for 
 foxes is the stick-heap. The best place for making 
 a stick-heap is that of which an account is given in 
 
 H 2
 
 loo THE FOX 
 
 Baily's Hunting Directory, p. 15, 1897. 'The site 
 selected was a sloping bank which shelved inwards 
 and formed a sort of basin above a brook. There 
 were a few old oaks round about.' The rough and 
 partially wooded land was enclosed. The bad and 
 doubtful trees were cut down and flung into the 
 hollow. When a foundation of entire trees was thus 
 formed, smaller branches and sticks were piled on 
 the top. Young whole trees should be used, as they 
 allow of paths and lying-up chambers.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 
 
 MR. DARWIN in the ' Descent of Man ' writes that 
 fox cubs in a country where they are much hunted 
 are more wary than elsewhere. This is a quotation 
 from Le Roy's delightful little book. 1 But it refers 
 not so much to the foxes in hunting countries as to 
 those that live in places where they are treated as 
 vermin. Foxes in Scotland, in those parts of Wales 
 where there are no hounds, and in the Hudson Bay 
 Territory where they are trapped for their skins, are 
 doubtless more wary than in the hunting countries 
 of England. They seem to know when they are 
 respected, and to impose upon their hosts. On one 
 estate where the foxes have been long preserved they 
 are extraordinarily bold. A vixen and cub have been 
 known to invade the poultry-yard by day, and to take 
 away chickens under the very eyes of the men who 
 were working on a haystack. The cub actually laid 
 1 Lettres sur P Intelligence des Animaiix.
 
 102 THE FOX 
 
 down in a neighbouring field to eat his booty, and 
 almost refused to leave it when the keeper came up 
 to him. 
 
 Foxes in a well-hunted but carefully preserved 
 country seem to care less for man than in other 
 places. But, as we have repeatedly noted, the fox is 
 as adaptable mentally as he is physically liable to 
 variation. It is curious that, of all our familiar 
 mammals, the fox and the otter, of which the first 
 varies in every possible way, and the second scarcely 
 at all, are among the most widely distributed animals 
 of prey. 
 
 The fox adapts himself not only to his surroundings, 
 but also to our methods of hunting him. Foxhunting, 
 as we have it now, is comparatively a modern sport, 
 but hunting the fox with the aid of dogs is very 
 ancient, for the fox's depredations have always made 
 it necessary to keep his numbers down. The story 
 of the fox with many wiles, and the cat with but one, 
 is a very ancient fable, and bears witness to the 
 antiquity of the chase of the fox. It also shows us 
 that foxes in those days ran rings, since the fox was 
 killed under the tree where the cat had at first taken 
 refuge. 
 
 The fox, it is clear, had then as now a reputation 
 for puzzling the hounds by many a trick ; yet I have
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 103 
 
 always thought that he owes something of his 
 reputation for cleverness to his face. His long nose, 
 oblique eyes and pricked ears, added to his swift, 
 easy, noiseless, stealthy action, have made people 
 think him cleverer than he is. Most artists who have 
 painted foxes have exaggerated the human cunning 
 and painted a bad man instead of a little wild animal, 
 which is only worse than other animals in that he is 
 more troublesome to man. But the fox suffers from the 
 fame the fabulists of all ages have given him, and the 
 way naturalists have played up to the story-tellers in 
 their descriptions and anecdotes. The fox-pictures 
 which illustrate this book are, I believe, free from this 
 fault, and the artists have seen and painted the fox as 
 he is in real life. As a matter of fact a hunted fox 
 cannot be compared for the ingenuity of his tricks and 
 stratagems with a hare or an old stag. Foxes in stone- 
 wall countries often run along the top of the walls. In 
 the Badminton book on ' Hunting ' there is a picture 
 of a famous Beaufort hound, Potentate, springing at 
 a fox on a wall. But I have never heard of a fox 
 devising a trick of such subtlety as that of the hare 
 which ran along a wall till she came to a gateway, 
 jumped down, and then springing back on to the 
 wall, retraced her steps, and sprang off into a brake, 
 where she squatted. When the hounds arrived one
 
 104 THE FOX 
 
 carried the line along the wall, and naturally he threw 
 his tongue in the gateway. The huntsman concluded 
 that the hare had gone on, held hounds forward, and 
 a fresh hare springing up, the original hare escaped as 
 she deserved to do. Now a fox would hardly have 
 done this quite so elaborately. But then probably 
 hares and stags as a race have more experience of 
 being hunted because they are eatable, and naturally 
 in primitive times man pursued such animals as served 
 for food more eagerly than the mischievous ones. If 
 primitive man or his moderately civilised descendants 
 knew of the whereabout of a hare or stag, they were 
 all agog to kill him. But if the fox or wolf robbed 
 his neighbour he bore it patiently, and only turned his 
 attention to the less profitable animal when its depre- 
 dations were intolerable to himself. Even to this 
 day, hare-hunting, and where it survives wild- stag- 
 hunting, are more popular with farmers as a class 
 than fox-hunting. The same feeling survives, too, 
 in many sportsmen who like to feel that the game 
 or fish they shoot or catch will not be wasted. 
 
 In truth it is not a fox's cunning but his simplicity 
 that makes him so valuable as a beast of chase. 
 When a fox runs straight from point to point, crosses 
 the fields in the middle, we call him a good fox and 
 celebrate his exploits in story and song. But such
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 105 
 
 foxes are easy to hunt, while everyone knows that 
 turning, twisting, hedgerow-haunting foxes are the 
 hardest to kill. When a huntsman finds an animal 
 of this sort in front of his hounds he has a difficult 
 task to work out, and need expect small credit, for 
 when he has exerted all his knowledge and science 
 his field will exclaim, ' Why does Tom or Charles not 
 give up this brute and find us another ? ' But who 
 will say that the dodging fox has not the better 
 chance of life of the two, and does not show the 
 greater cunning ? If there were none but clever 
 foxes we should give up hunting ; if there were none 
 but simple ones we should soon have no more foxes 
 to hunt. The variability of the fox is an advantage 
 both to the race and to the sport. 
 
 There is often a considerable difference in foxes 
 of the same litter. I knew a litter of four of which 
 two were killed and two were left by the first of 
 November. Both of these lived in the same 
 covert. One was not difficult to recognise as he had 
 more white than usual on his underparts and chest, 
 had a greyish coat and a big white tag to his brush. 
 The other, and as we all believed his litter-brother, 
 was smaller and darker. The dark fox never ran 
 a yard further than he was obliged. He generally 
 dodged for an hour or more about the covert, a wood
 
 106 THE FOX 
 
 of sixty or seventy acres. Sometimes he was forced 
 away, and then he would run up and down the hedge- 
 rows till he got into some rabbit-hole or drain. One 
 favourite place was a pollard willow hanging over a 
 small river. Here he crouched until his hiding-place 
 was discovered. He sprang into the water, hounds 
 had a view, and rushed pell mell over the stream 
 and half-way across one meadow on the opposite side 
 before they found out that the fox was not in front of 
 them. Then they checked. In the meantime the 
 fox had never left the bed of the stream at all, but 
 turning sharply he threaded along in a reed-bed 
 underneath the overhanging bank for some distance 
 and then was seen to swim back. This fox is 
 believed to have been killed in a drain by a terrier 
 at last, but only after he had lived for some years. 
 
 Sometimes, however, we hit on the line of the 
 larger fox or we changed on to him in covert. His 
 tactics were perfectly simple. He went straight away 
 for five miles to a big wood, tried the earths and then 
 crossed the border of our hunt for another refuge two 
 or three miles further on, and either ran hounds out 
 of scent or got in somewhere. But he never failed to 
 try the main earth in the covert to which he ran. Of 
 course he found it stopped, and he then went right 
 on as before. He trusted to his speed and endur-
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 107 
 
 ance to beat hounds, and for two seasons he suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
 It was one morning late in the cub-hunting season 
 of 1883 that hounds were put into the covert. They 
 spoke at once, and almost without a moment's pause 
 they settled on the line. There was one of those 
 rare scents on which hounds never pause or waver, 
 but turn with every bend of the fox's course. It 
 was impossible to stop them. When they reached 
 the big wood with but two men in attendance, the 
 first whipper-in and another, the hounds were so 
 close to the fox that he was driven right through the 
 covert without a chance to turn, and was killed two 
 fields away on the far side. 
 
 It is quite possible that one cause of the degene- 
 racy of foxes is that we are always hunting and killing 
 the simple-minded animals and allowing the more 
 cunning ones to escape. For when we speak and 
 write of the degeneracy of foxes we refer of course to 
 the amount of sport we have with them. From the 
 fox's point of view the more intelligent and cunning 
 the animal is the more likely he is to survive. The 
 saying that, with a mature fox that has a fair start, the 
 odds are six to four on the fox as against the best 
 pack of hounds, may be brought up against me here, 
 But this applies to that large majority of hunting
 
 loS THE FOX 
 
 days when scent varies from field to field, almost 
 from moment to moment. Such a scent as I have 
 written of above upsets all calculations whether of fox 
 or man. For whatever the vagaries of scent are it is 
 very rare for it to hold for twenty minutes. 
 
 But a great many of the simple-minded foxes are 
 caught as cubs before they have their full strength 
 and endurance. Nowadays cub-hunting is almost a 
 part of the regular season. The fixtures are adver- 
 tised and many men and women come to them. 
 Hounds are more often indulged with a dash in 
 the open than they used to be, and the little brave 
 cub that breaks away is too often sacrificed when he 
 ought to be spared. 
 
 Young hounds, no doubt, are improved by a scurry 
 into the open and the triumph of a fox rolled over, 
 but this is hardly legitimate unless all the other foxes 
 have gone, and hounds, horses and men have earned 
 a little gallop if the fox is willing to humour them. 
 
 A question arises at this point, How far have 
 the changes in our methods of hunting affected 
 foxes ? The fox has always been hunted. At first 
 by men and dogs as in the cat-and-fox fable referred 
 to above. This no doubt was a kind of bobbery 
 pack, which was, however, the germ of our foxhound 
 packs. We cannot doubt that to the fox we owe the
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 109 
 
 breeding of the foxhound. Primitive hunters would 
 see at once the advantage of a dog which hunted by 
 scent, and gave notice by his tongue of the dis- 
 coveries of his nose. 
 
 In forest countries greyhounds must have been 
 comparatively useless, though no doubt the ancestor 
 of our greyhound was much less of a mere gaze- 
 hound than his descendants, and could, like the 
 lurcher, or the Scotch deerhound, use his nose at a 
 pinch. Thus the dog which would not only hunt by 
 nose, but speak advisedly with its tongue, must early 
 have been of value for every kind of chase, especially 
 in rough forest countries. The race of foxes must 
 soon have become accustomed to be hunted by scent 
 and used to the cry of hounds. 
 
 For a long time the packs of hounds hunted 
 everything they came across, and it is hardly a 
 century and a half since the fox became the object 
 of special attention. Even later than that, well into 
 the nineteenth century, the fox was thought of as 
 vermin ; and in the West, where the fox-hunt was, 
 and still is, overshadowed by the hunting of the stag, 
 the owner of an historic pack told me that the people 
 regarded his father as a sort of superior rat-catcher 
 when he hunted foxes. Of the primitive fox-hunt a 
 vivid sketch is to be found in ' Guy Mannering,' both
 
 i io THE FOX 
 
 in the text and in a note. Dandie Dinmont's last 
 hunt shows that the old school of fox-hunters could 
 be as enthusiastic as those of the present day. 
 
 The change in the style of hunting, and the 
 rapidity with which a vermin-hunt grew to be re- 
 garded as a fashionable sport, made an immense 
 difference to the fox. 
 
 It is not so much that foxhound packs are faster as 
 that they are hunted more quickly. In an old book 
 published in 1805, 'The Sportsman's Cabinet,' there 
 is a very spirited plate after a picture by Reinagle of two 
 foxhounds racing on a hot scent. With the exception 
 of the fact that they are possibly a little more throaty 
 than would be approved of to-day, these hounds 
 would pass muster anywhere in the twentieth century. 
 
 Judging by these and other notable pictures, 
 the hound was much the same a hundred years ago 
 as he is now. The fact is that the pace of a pack 
 of hounds depends much upon the man who hunts 
 them. A foxhound left too much to himself will 
 potter, hover and rejoice over the scent almost as 
 much as an otterhound. He will even wait for his 
 huntsman. The difference in demeanour between 
 hounds that have a slack man, or even one who is too 
 bigoted to the 'Let 'em alone' maxim, and those 
 that are hunted by a keen, sharp man, is wonderful.
 
 THE HUNTED FOX in 
 
 The modern system of foxhunting has had a 
 marked effect on the foxes in several ways. Careful 
 preservation makes the English Midland fox less wary 
 and shy than the Welsh or Scotch fox, and a fairly 
 experienced Leicestershire fox is almost impossible to 
 head. He will thread his way through a crowd of 
 horsemen and carriages rather than be baulked of his 
 point. I once saw a fox run down a hedgerow on 
 the other side of which was a big field of horsemen. 
 He was not a yard away and I could easily have 
 touched him with the thong of my whip. Of course 
 several people shouted, but he ran right along the 
 whole line, near half a mile in length at this point, 
 and turning sharp through a hole in the fence, crossed 
 the road behind us. Now I think that it would be 
 impossible to see a fox do this in a country where he 
 is an outlaw. A fox, if I may put it in that way, is 
 far less affected by being hunted than by the care 
 taken for his preservation. Only I think that an often- 
 hunted fox puts a much longer distance between him- 
 self and a modern pack and a quick huntsman than 
 he did when hounds pottered after him. I am not 
 sure that the old-fashioned style was not more fatal to 
 the foxes than the new, for a stout fox once started 
 seldom stays till he reaches his point. Goosey, the 
 Belvoir huntsman, who begged leave to state that the
 
 112 THE FOX 
 
 fox was a toddling animal, was certainly right, mean- 
 ing as he did that he must press his fox at some time 
 during the run if he was to kill him, or the fox 
 would run hounds out of scent. Whereas with the 
 old style of hounds they went hunting on, never 
 resting, never halting, seldom overrunning the line, 
 and steadily, pitilessly pursuing the fox to his death. 
 
 There was nothing like the number of foxes that 
 there are nowadays, and thus the fox that was found 
 in the morning was killed later in the day. Now the 
 fox has every chance of putting off the burden of the 
 hunt on another. Though the danger to the in- 
 dividual fox was possibly greater, he was not so much 
 on the alert as he is when a smart, eager hunts- 
 man and a driving pack are on his line. If he is 
 hunted in this way for any length of time he receives 
 a sharp lesson. And this he does not forget. Next 
 time the fox does not dawdle, but, as Goosey says, 
 keeps on 'toddling,' putting a longer and longer 
 interval between himself and his pursuers as'chance 
 offers, so that it is perhaps commoner for hounds to 
 be run fairly out of scent nowadays than it was when 
 the fox just kept in front of a slower pack. 
 
 The foxes of the present day have probably a 
 much more limited range than their ancestors. Since 
 there are many more of them, and as each dog fox
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 113 
 
 has a range of his own, they are kept within narrower 
 limits. Besides this, a fox has not to work quite so 
 hard for his living as he had formerly. Thus, while 
 the actual fact of being hunted is no new factor in 
 the fox's life, the preservation of foxes necessary 
 for hunting has modified the struggle for existence, 
 has made life easier and diminished the dangers and 
 anxieties inherent in the existence of a beast of prey. 
 We can see the evidence of this in the modern fox, 
 less shy and evasive than his predecessors, or than 
 he is in those countries where he is still regarded as 
 vermin. 
 
 There is one topic of great interest with regard to 
 hunted foxes that must not be passed over. This is 
 scent. It would be going outside the limits of my 
 present topic to discuss the problems of scent, or to 
 recount the various theories which have been pro- 
 pounded to account for the presence or absence of it 
 on particular days or in certain places. The point 
 with which we have to deal is the result to the fox 
 himself of the scent which he leaves. I have no theory 
 on scent to propound in this case : I am only dealing 
 with facts. The first thing to be noted is that a 
 rank odour is diffused by most of the race of foxes. 
 It varies not only from species to species but from 
 individual to individual. All the varieties of our 
 
 I
 
 II 4 THE FOX 
 
 common fox have the distinctive odour except the 
 little Bengal fox. The Arctic fox which, however, 
 is a separate species has it not, and the Eastern foxes 
 have it to a much less degree than those of Europe 
 or America. We are prepared therefore to find that 
 the foxes we hunt differ to a considerable extent in the 
 trace they leave. The secretion of the scent depends 
 on the individual animal, on its strength and maturity, 
 and probably to a certain extent upon its sex. I 
 think dog foxes have generally a stronger scent than 
 vixens. Thus it is quite possible to hunt two foxes 
 consecutively under apparently similar conditions 
 and to find that hounds can scarcely hunt one fox at 
 all but will run eagerly after the other. We say that 
 scent has improved, and so no doubt it has, but, in 
 fact, we have before us a fox with more and stronger 
 secretions. A fox that lies still apparently gives no 
 scent at all, and as we know a hound may actually sniff 
 at a bush under which a fox is lying and pass it by. 
 
 When, however, the fox is in motion and he grows 
 warm with pursuit the scent becomes stronger; but 
 as soon as he begins to tire and his strength to fail, 
 the scent grows fainter and sometimes ceases altogether 
 to be emitted. A fresh fox will lead most hounds 
 astray from the line, the trail of the newly aroused 
 animal being so much more attractive than that of
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 115 
 
 the hunted one. Many hounds, however, seem able 
 to recognise that the change of scent means that the 
 fox's powers are failing. Now, they seem to think, is 
 the time for an effort, and the observant huntsman 
 riding alongside his pack will notice that certain 
 hounds push to the front and begin to run hardei 
 than ever, while others drop back, apparently unable 
 to hold to the line or to follow it with the same 
 enthusiasm as before. There are hounds in every 
 pack which are perhaps rather slack drawers, or not 
 very forward in the chase, until the time comes when 
 they can run for blood. Such hounds are frequently 
 responsible for the death of the fox. 
 
 The use of their odour to the race of foxes is 
 rather difficult to explain, but it is probably a kind 
 of bond of union, or it may be of warning, so that 
 one fox shall be able to recognise when it comes 
 upon the beat of another and to know its sex and 
 possibly even its age. This odour might seem to 
 be a disadvantage in some ways, but it is withheld 
 either voluntarily or involuntarily in times of danger. 
 We have seen that it is in some measure dependent 
 on sex and health and age, and it is clearly an 
 advantage to the younger and weaker foxes as 
 well as to vixens in the spring that they give off 
 a fainter odour, or perhaps, in the latter instance 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 THE FOX 
 
 one so changed that the hounds are unwilling to 
 hunt it. But there are other cases in which the 
 scent ceases quite suddenly, and it is very evident 
 that fear diminishes the secretions to the great ad- 
 vantage of the fox. 
 
 Instances of this are familiar to every hunting man. 
 Suppose, for example, a fox is coursed by a stray cur 
 an incident only too common in the grass countries 
 it is generally found that scent fails wholly or in 
 part, and the pack no longer run with their former 
 dash and confidence and sometimes cannot hunt 
 at all. It would be interesting to know how many 
 foxes' lives are saved by shepherds' dogs, in the 
 course of a season. The total would certainly be 
 large. In the same way when a fox springs up in 
 view and hounds course him for a couple of fields 
 they find it difficult to hunt him afterwards. For this 
 reason, too, 1 think it is that the life of the fox is so 
 often saved when a tired fox is viewed after a long 
 run. Huntsmen are often led away to shout by the 
 excitement of the moment. Hounds catch a view, 
 then the fox runs to a hedgerow and all trace vanishes. 
 On the other hand, when a nearly beaten fox is before 
 hounds the quietest man will be more likely to kill him. 
 Of course, with an absolutely beaten fox it does not 
 matter so much, though it is more satisfactory that the
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 117 
 
 hounds should run into their fox fairly than that he 
 should be mobbed by the men. The most perfect 
 huntsman at the finish of a long run is the present 
 Duke of Beaufort, and he probably loses fewer foxes 
 than anyone else. If a fox be not quite so done as we 
 think he is, he may very likely escape, since, as we have 
 seen, at such times he appears to lose his natural 
 odour altogether. No doubt these modifications of 
 the scent-bearing power of the fox are of advantage 
 to the race. That the weaker individuals should give 
 a fainter odour, the younger foxes should be more 
 difficult to hunt, and that the scent of a thoroughly 
 frightened fox or a weary one should fade altogether, 
 must, in the case of an animal always throughout its 
 history an object of pursuit, be a great advantage. 
 
 I think, too, we are entitled to draw certain con- 
 clusions from these facts as to the feelings of the 
 hunted fox, and we may infer that until the scent 
 fails the fox feels no fear. We have many instances 
 to show that this is so of foxes ; for example, while 
 they are being hunted actually killing and carrying off 
 fowls and ducks. Once in the Old Berkshire country 
 a fox grabbed at a fowl when hounds were running him 
 and disappeared with it into an earth. Indeed, when 
 we come to think of it, if an animal like the fox, which 
 has many enemies and is constantly an object of
 
 Ii8 THE FOX 
 
 pursuit, were to suffer greatly from fear its life would 
 be a miserable one ; whereas the fox probably enjoys its 
 existence as much as any inhabitant of the woodlands. 
 The effect on him of hunting in this way has been to 
 stimulate the cunning and resource of the race we 
 might almost say the reasoning power for we recollect 
 three remarkable cases of devices which are the more 
 valuable as being attested by sportsmen and observers 
 of no ordinary trustworthiness. 
 
 The first story is told by Mr. Charles McNeill, 
 now Master of the North Cotswold, a forward rider 
 who was likely to have many chances of seeing what 
 the fox was about. In this case a weary fox dragging 
 himself over a grass-field sprang on to a manure-heap 
 and rolled himself over in it. Thus, Mr. McNeill 
 thinks, he endeavoured to obliterate his own by a 
 stronger scent. It is well known to huntsmen that 
 manures and fertilisers are bad for scent. Is it not 
 possible that this is known to the fox also ? 
 
 The next instance is still more remarkable, and 
 was related in the ' Field ' by Mr. H. S. Davenport, 
 who is not only a sportsman of experience but a 
 careful and accurate observer of wild life. Mr. 
 Fernie's hounds were driving a fox hard near to the 
 Lovers' Walk in the Cottesmore country. In a field 
 close at hand was a plough-team at work, three horses
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 119 
 
 abreast. Just as hounds appeared in full cry the 
 man went to the horses' heads to adjust the harness. 
 Then he returned to the plough-handle. There, 
 crouched in the furrow, was the hunted fox, trying to 
 use the ploughshare as a screen. A moment later 
 the creature sprang up and struggled onwards. As 
 Mr. Davenport observed, the notable point was that 
 the fox should seek shelter by the ploughshare when 
 there was some thick covert close at hand. May we 
 infer that he thought he was less likely to be looked 
 for near the plough ? At all events between the 
 two points of Allexton Wood and the Lovers' Walk 
 he had had plenty of opportunity to learn that on a 
 scenting day no covert is a refuge for the fox, even 
 if his previous experiences in one of the most con- 
 stantly hunted districts of the shires had not, as is 
 more than likely, taught it to him already. 
 
 Another witness is Mr. Walter Woodgate, so well 
 known to several generations of Oxford men for his 
 knowledge of rowing and of sport. On two occa- 
 sions, he writes, a fox had been seen to run with a 
 pack that were hunting him, ' for in a run with the 
 H.H. the fox had doubled sharply, and the hounds 
 were on the line short of the point at which he had 
 doubled. The fox turned again, reached a tussock 
 of coarse grass, and squatted.' The hounds ran on
 
 120 THE FOX 
 
 and the fox crept back to the nearest covert. ' On 
 another occasion, a fox was seen running with some 
 of the tail hounds of the H.H. Then he was lost 
 sight of and the hounds ran on. Probably this fox 
 had suddenly squatted when he found a suitable 
 spot. 
 
 ' Again in the " fifties " the Old Berkshire hounds 
 were running one spring day a twisting fox that had 
 been found in Bagley. The fox had doubled back 
 from between Lower Radley and Abingdon, and 
 reached the pond below Radley School House in 
 Radley Park. Some of the lower-school boys were 
 strolling there. The fox crouched up to them and 
 laid down. One of the boys threw a jacket over 
 it and picked it up. The fox submitted to the 
 handling as amicably as a lady's lapdog. The boy 
 carried the fox up to the school enclosure, and when 
 the hounds had passed, released it. If I recollect 
 right, the boy was Meredith Brown, of Trinity 
 College, Oxford, stroke of the Oxford crew in 1865- 
 1866, and President of the O.U.B.C.' 
 
 In all these cases, which are well authenticated, 
 the fox displayed something more than cunning. He 
 recognised at least the difference between possible 
 friends and certain foes. Animals doubtless appre- 
 ciate courage and gentleness combined, and in the
 
 THE HUNTED FOX 121 
 
 case I have quoted the firm and considerate handling 
 had no doubt something to do with the fox's con 
 fidence and submission. We know how some people 
 can handle dogs and horses that others dare not come 
 near. Animals have, I think, some faculty of dis- 
 cernment of character, and know a friend at once. I 
 remember once seeing a strange, nervous, and very 
 frightened little Skye terrier who was introduced into 
 a room full of strangers. He darted at once to one 
 lady and clung so to her that at last he became her 
 property, and for twelve years never wavered in his 
 affection and allegiance. Needless to say, he chose 
 well.
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE, AND NOTES ON MANGE 
 
 THE fox is a wild animal by nature. He may, like 
 other animals, be partly tamed, but he is never 
 domesticated, and although captive foxes with charac- 
 teristic adaptability will make the best of their re- 
 straint, they never, as do the dog or the cat, become 
 members of their master's family. In almost all cases 
 they are shy with strangers. 
 
 The captive fox always lives a life apart from 
 that of man. His love of concealment and desire to 
 slay remain as strong as ever. However well fed, 
 no fowl is safe within his reach. He has no respect 
 for his master's property. Even the cat will spare 
 her owner's birds, and the most confirmed poacher 
 among cats is to be trusted in the farmyard. But the 
 fox is never trustworthy. Indeed, if careful observers 
 are to be believed, he adapts his ruses to circum- 
 stances and endeavours to entice the unsuspecting
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 123 
 
 poultry within reach of his chain. Mr. St. John, 
 who was a most careful observer, tells of a captive 
 fox which would beguile fowls within his reach by 
 leaving some of his food as a bait. This story has 
 been ridiculed, but there is nothing incredible in it. 
 The fox is as likely to do this as to feign sleep so as 
 to lull the suspicions of his intended victims. This 
 trick captive foxes have often been observed to 
 practise. To an animal so active and so adventurous 
 as the fox, a great part of whose life is spent, and 
 whose happiness is found, in hunting his prey, well- 
 fed captivity must be dull. We can imagine that a 
 fox, if so elaborate a calculation were possible to 
 him, would greatly prefer freedom, with uncertain 
 meals and the chance of being hunted, to a dull and 
 prosperous captivity. 
 
 Yet to this there are well-authenticated excep- 
 tions. Indeed it is most difficult to lay down the 
 law as to what a fox will or will not do. I began to 
 write this book with certain well-defined theories 
 about the fox, based on long interest and observa- 
 tion ; nevertheless, as these have been examined and 
 verification has been attempted, it has been neces- 
 sary to abandon some, modify others, and allow 
 exceptions in all cases. There are instances, then, of 
 foxes preferring the society of man and domestic
 
 I2 4 THE FOX 
 
 animals to the wild life of the woods. There is, 
 for example, the case of a fox cub which was kept 
 with another fox in confinement. Every day the cub 
 was allowed a run in a walled garden from which 
 escape was supposed to be impossible. One day, 
 however, some strangers came in with his master, and 
 the fox, seized with a sudden panic, scrambled over 
 the wall into the next garden. There he was attacked 
 and chased by two dogs. Once more he scaled the 
 wall and was next seen at some distance from his 
 home. He then tried to take refuge in another 
 garden, but here the house-dog and the cat both flew 
 at him, and at last he disappeared into a small wood. 
 He was given up for lost, but to the surprise of every- 
 one he was found asleep in his usual resting-place 
 the next morning. Here was a case of voluntary 
 return to captivity. Incidentally, we see how a wild 
 animal like the fox keeps his wits about him, for 
 the cub knew how to find his way back. One might 
 have supposed that the strangeness of the outer world 
 and the perils he encountered would have confused 
 him. Even a dog when thoroughly frightened is lost 
 sometimes. But this fox came back to his home, 
 retaining his sense of direction and a memory of 
 the landmarks by which he could trace his way, 
 although to do this he had to climb a high fence and
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 125 
 
 creep along several garden walls before he could find 
 his own. 
 
 But the most remarkable instance of a tame fox 
 comes from County Cork. In this case, the fox had 
 been captured as a cub. Before he was a year old 
 he made his escape, but to the surprise and delight 
 of the lady who brought him up, he returned of his 
 own accord. Henceforth, he led a half-domesticated 
 life in a covert on a steep and rocky eminence at 
 the back of the house. A correspondent of the 
 ' Field ' relates how the fox's mistress would take a 
 plate of meat and a whistle. Joe was sure to make 
 his appearance. When he received a piece of meat 
 he always took it away and buried it, returning for 
 another piece, which he also buried. Not only 
 would this fox come at call : if hungry he was in 
 the habit of appearing at the kitchen window, where 
 the cook would feed him. 
 
 Joe was on excellent terms with the two dogs, and 
 when he felt inclined for company he would come on 
 to the lawn in front of the house to seek a game 
 with them or with the cat. He was fond of hiding 
 and springing suddenly on a dog's back. One of 
 his playfellows was a setter which would invariably 
 point if he touched the line of Joe's travels in 
 the coverts. The fox would go out rabbiting with
 
 126 THE FOX 
 
 the dogs, who found him a most useful ally. Once, 
 when some distance away from home, Joe fell in 
 with the hounds. He had to run for his life, but, 
 fortunately for him, he was a well-known character, 
 and when he made for his home at Oakfield the 
 Master recognised what he was hunting, and called 
 the hounds off. 
 
 The story of Joe was the means of clearing up 
 a disputed point about foxes. The writer of the 
 account in the ' Field ' stated that when Joe saw the 
 plate of meat he wagged his brush. It was at once 
 denied that foxes do wag their brushes, and a 
 spirited controversy ensued. One writer quite un- 
 justly implied that Joe was a fiction, or that at least 
 his story was made up of much-embellished facts. 
 
 It was, however, established beyond doubt that 
 foxes do wag their ' tails.' One reason for this I have 
 suggested elsewhere. But the waving of the tail is 
 common among cats and dogs as we know, and 
 some other animals express pleasure or expectation by 
 moving the tail. When a wholly domesticated dog or 
 cat, a partly tame wolf, fox, or other wild animal, 
 wags its tail, the origin of the habit is of the same 
 kind, though not always identical. 
 
 I have already pointed out that in the feline car- 
 nivora and the fox, which are both stealthy stalkers
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 127 
 
 of their prey, the gentle waving of the tail which we see, 
 is useful in distracting the attention of the intended 
 victim. So with the dog. If we watch a pack of hounds 
 we see that a hound who touches the line of a fox lashes 
 his stern from side to side. The pack in a covert do 
 the same when they think, but are not sure, that a 
 fox is there. Directly a hound begins to ' feather ' 
 the others take the waving of the stern as a signal : 
 they flock to him to see if they can make anything 
 of it. 
 
 Now which is the cause of tail-wagging, pleasure 
 or a signal to the pack ? I think the fact that dogs, 
 cats, foxes and wolves all seem to show pleasure 
 by tail-wagging is a mark that a certain sense of 
 gratification is the spring of the action. The percep- 
 tion on the part of the others that one of their 
 number is expressing pleasure at the anticipation 
 of a kill brings the rest to him, and thus the signals 
 become a recognised code, as they help in the 
 capture of prey. So the cat and fox may just 
 move the tail as a sign of pleasure, or at least of 
 pleasurable expectation ; and if, as I have suggested, 
 the action was an advantage to the race, then it 
 would tend to become fixed. At all events there is no 
 reason to doubt that with the half-tame fox or wolf, 
 pleasurable expectation is at the root of the action.
 
 128 THE FOX 
 
 The dog, it is true, has lifted tail-wagging to a 
 higher plane by using it as an expression of affection. 
 The tail of the terrier lying at my feet wags when his 
 dinner is coming, waves frantically as he sees prepa- 
 rations being made for a walk, but it beats the ground 
 only in response to the voice of the person he loves 
 best. Even here the dog does not stand alone, 
 though in his case the affection for persons and 
 animals outside his own race is more powerful as a 
 moving or restraining influence than with the wolf 
 or the fox. In the case of these last, and especially 
 with the fox, the affection for a master is apt to be 
 swept away in a moment by the rising tide of 
 ancestral habits and instincts. The same thing hap- 
 pens with the dog, but more seldom ; and even with 
 man there are moments when the primeval animal 
 is stronger than the continued influence of civilisa- 
 tion and affection. 
 
 To return to our tame foxes. The fox is not in- 
 capable of affection, but he never quite gains con- 
 fidence in man as the dog does ; which is not 
 wonderful, considering the age-long enmity between 
 the two. But there is one curious circumstance 
 about tame foxes, and indeed any other domesticated 
 wild animals : that although they never lose their dis- 
 trust of man, even if they learn to have confidence in
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 129 
 
 individuals watch your tame fox's terror of, and dis- 
 taste for, strangers they will fraternise readily with 
 the dogs and cats about the place. This is only one 
 of the wonderful glimpses we obtain by careful obser- 
 vation into the minds of animals. The fox is probably 
 capable of the generalisation that man is the most 
 intelligent and dangerous of animals. He would, 
 could he speak, express of us exactly the same 
 opinion we have of him : ' An intelligent animal, with 
 some capacities for affection, but you can never trust 
 him.' Such in fox language would be the account 
 given by an escaped fox of his experience of man. 
 But with other animals there is a freemasonry. No one 
 can doubt that the lower animals have a kind of 
 common language, probably of gesture. This lingua 
 franca of the woods is very limited, but is also effec- 
 tive to warn of danger or to attract to food. 
 
 The fox soon makes friends with the dogs and loses 
 all fear of them. There was a fox cub in the Duke of 
 Buccleuch's country that was put into a kennel with 
 terriers and hounds. He was soon on the best of 
 terms with them all. After a time, however, the 
 ancestral instinct for killing was too strong for him, 
 and a whole hecatomb of dead fowls one morning 
 caused the fox to be sentenced to the chain. But in 
 spite of this he would get loose at times, and then the 
 
 K
 
 1 30 THE FOX 
 
 hounds old ones used for tracking wounded deer 
 were put to hunt him. This the fox regarded as a 
 joke : he would set the hounds puzzles, and then 
 lying in some ambush spring out upon their backs. 
 After a time, however, the old hounds would tire 
 of the fun, and then one of them would roll the fox 
 over and hold him until he was recaptured and 
 chained up again. 
 
 Nothing is more notable than the way hounds, 
 and even terriers, will generally respect a tame fox. 
 A pack of hounds was running a fox on one occasion 
 through an orchard in which a tame fox was chained. 
 They took absolutely no notice of the tame fox. 
 Then there is the well-known and often-quoted 
 instance of Mr. Templer, of Stover, who hunted 
 nothing but bagged foxes, some of which when at 
 home were on the best possible terms with the 
 hounds. 
 
 The same thing has been said of the terrier ; but 
 he is a bloodthirsty little person, and the following 
 story is a proof that the terrier is not so discriminat- 
 ing as the hound. A friend who has some excellent 
 working terriers went to visit a neighbour, taking 
 two of her dogs with her. Knowing that the visitor 
 would stay to luncheon and that the dogs would 
 come into the dining-room, a young man who was
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 131 
 
 staying in the house put a stuffed fox under the dining- 
 table. Hardly were the company seated when a 
 tremendous uproar arose. The lady of the house 
 was much distressed, being under the impression that 
 the terriers were worrying her favourite Skye, which, 
 however, with characteristic dislike of strangers, had 
 already retired from the room. The host and the 
 visitor dived under the table and soon discovered 
 that the terriers were worrying the stuffed fox with 
 the greatest eagerness. There is, however, a reason 
 why terriers should be more indiscriminate than 
 hounds : the terrier's desire is to tackle, the hunting 
 is secondary with him ; but on the other hand the fox- 
 hound's first impulse is to hunt. 
 
 Now there is in all probability a considerable 
 difference between the scent given off by a wild and 
 a tame fox, and foxhounds hardly recognise the latter 
 as that of the quarry they are accustomed to hunt. 
 Every huntsman knows what a difference there is in 
 the demeanour of hounds when they have a bagman 
 before them : the puppies and the riotous ones come 
 to the front, while the best hounds in the pack can 
 hardly be persuaded to acknowledge the line. Indeed 
 the bagman often escapes to spread mange abroad, 
 because the best hounds are so slack in hunting him. 
 But such refinements are unknown to the terrier, 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE FOX 
 
 whose desire it is to fly at his enemy wherever 
 and whenever he can get the chance. Even hounds 
 do not always respect the chained fox, for I know 
 of one instance where a single hound, getting wind 
 of a tame fox, jumped over a fence and murdered 
 it then and there, to the great annoyance of its 
 owner. But still I think it may be taken as a 
 general rule that hounds will not interfere with a 
 fox in captivity. 
 
 The fox, as we have already noted, may be partly 
 tamed ; it may even be moved by some affection for 
 its owner, but it is very seldom if ever domesticated. 
 Among all the instances of tame foxes which I have 
 heard of, there are only two in which the fox seems 
 to have been actually employed usefully. Some years 
 ago a rat-catcher in Gloucestershire used a fox in his 
 business ; the fox was set to watch the holes when 
 the ferrets were put in, and seldom missed a rat that 
 bolted. This fox, the man declared, killed more rats 
 than all his dogs put together. But the story does 
 not tell how the fox was trained to respect the ferrets. 
 It is well known that foxes are most determined foes 
 of stoats and weasels, and there are several instances 
 of foxes attacking ferrets. But that the fox is a 
 very clever ratter is well known. In the days when 
 wild-fowl were captured in a decoy, the well-known
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 133 
 
 curiosity of the birds was played upon by showing 
 them a reddish dog or a tame fox. One of the latter 
 was used at the Berkeley Castle decoy, a generation 
 ago. 
 
 It is quite possible that wild foxes practise on the 
 curiosity of wild ducks, for it is a fact that foxes do 
 manage to capture a good many of these wary birds. 
 By gambolling and playing on the bank, they bring 
 the ducks within reach of their spring, which is as 
 quick and as certain as that of a cat or a weasel. But 
 in both these instances there was of course no 
 domestication : it was only that man was making use 
 of the natural aptitudes of the fox and his stratagems 
 for his own purpose. 
 
 The difference between the tame fox and the 
 domesticated dog is notable. In the dog the wild 
 traits are only, and often useless, survivals. The dog 
 buries his bone, though he has no experience of 
 hunger and probably knows the next day's dinner will 
 be forthcoming. He turns round on the hearthrug 
 because his ancestors prepared their lair in that way. 
 But this latter is not always quite a useless habit, for 
 I know a pet dog who thus habitually arranges his 
 rug to his liking in his basket. But in the fox all the 
 cunning, lurking ways of the beast of prey persist. The 
 lust of slaughter remains, even though he is well and
 
 134 
 
 THE FOX 
 
 regularly fed. The same desire to kill breaks out 
 sometimes in dogs, though it can be and is restrained ; 
 but the fox is never to be trusted. The creature has 
 always been in contact with man and always at war 
 with him, and the long enmity cannot be pacified. 
 
 Of all the enemies of the poultry- yard the cap- 
 tive fox that has escaped is the worst. There is, at 
 the time I write, a very large fox which is supposed 
 to be an escaped captive, and in this season, 1905, he 
 has had twenty head of poultry from one yard, sixty 
 from another, and forty from a third. He has lost 
 much of his fear of man, and will not seldom forage 
 by day. Yet his natural cunning is not abated, for 
 the county pack, though they often find, have not, 
 so far, been able to kill him, although they are a kill- 
 ing pack, having slain some forty brace in the cub- 
 hunting season. 
 
 Some thirty years ago, a Mr. P^agle Cole gave 
 a most interesting account of some tame foxes 
 that were kept at his home in his boyhood. There 
 were three cubs, two dogs and a vixen. In the 
 summer-time they lived in the open confined by 
 chains. Each fox had his own earth, made with a 
 burrow which led to a barrel buried in the ground. 
 At first they were chained underneath a cherry tree, 
 but they ate so much of the unripe fruit as to make
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 135 
 
 themselves ill. Indeed, fruit was always a favourite 
 food, and the boys of the household used to 
 feed them with gooseberries and grapes. They were 
 very fond of cockchafers, but they loved best of all 
 a rat after it had been buried for a day or two. 
 Curiously enough, they seldom buried their food in 
 the same place. In the winter they were confined 
 in a large outhouse, with blocks of wood hollowed 
 out to sleep in. Sometimes the boys would take 
 out live rats. There was a stealthy gliding movement, 
 a swift paw would come out, and the rat was dead. 
 
 Each spring the vixen produced a litter of cubs, 
 generally from six to eight in number. When the 
 cubs were old enough to leave the mother they were 
 turned into a yard with some greyhound puppies. 
 Dogs and foxes were excellent friends and used to 
 play together. Hide-and-seek was a favourite game, 
 at which the foxes could always beat the puppies. 
 From time to time, one or other of the foxes escaped, 
 and they never failed to signalise their freedom 
 by a great slaughter in a neighbouring poultry-yard. 
 After two or three days, the truant would return. 
 One of the dog foxes, however, which was of a sullen 
 unfriendly disposition, escaped at last and never 
 came back. The other two died in captivity, the 
 dog at ten, the vixen at thirteen years old. It is
 
 136 THE FOX 
 
 probable that in a wild state few foxes live so long, 
 but if they survive the perils of their earlier years, and 
 if I am right in supposing that many of the older 
 foxes manage to escape being hunted, it is possible 
 that they live to this age. 
 
 As a rule, old foxes are able to keep themselves fat 
 and sleek, and I have seen some killed that had not a 
 tooth left, and yet were apparently in good case. What- 
 ever the fox's physical infirmities, he makes his intel- 
 ligence supply the place of strength, and Mr. St. John 
 relates the death of a fox that had only three legs, 
 having lost one in a trap. This fox, an old dog, was 
 in first-rate condition and fat and well-liking, so he 
 evidently fared well. It was a rifle-bullet that laid 
 him low. His tracks were well known from the 
 peculiarity of the prints of the stump by which he 
 had often been traced in the snow. 
 
 On the whole we may be tolerably certain that, 
 in spite of security and regular food, the captive fox 
 would prefer, and be happier when leading, a wild 
 and free life, even though he might be occasionally 
 hunted in the course of it. 
 
 But besides the tame foxes we see and hear of, 
 there are many captive foxes in England. This is 
 nothing new. Beckford speaks of the necessity of a 
 yard for foxes. I gather that the object of this was
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 137 
 
 to supply bag foxes for the hounds to hunt, for in 
 Beckford's day foxes were not too plentiful. The 
 M.F.H. was probably the only person who held foxes 
 imprisoned. But nowadays the keepers have taken 
 a leaf out of his book, and many of the foxes we find 
 have never known liberty. They have been kept in 
 some pit or den by the gamekeeper, who saves his 
 credit and his game by turning out one or two when 
 the hounds are coming. These generally fall easy 
 victims to the pack, for without condition and with- 
 out knowledge of the country such foxes can show no 
 sport. If they do escape and bad foxes are difficult 
 to kill on a very bad scenting day, when they turn and 
 twist about till the covert is foiled they are often 
 mangy, or have the seeds of the disease in them. 
 But they have served their purpose, for they have 
 earned for the keeper the money paid for each fox 
 found in his covert. It is these captives that are 
 one source of mange a scourge which may well 
 be dreaded, for it kills the foxes and devastates the 
 country. I am very much inclined to think that, 
 once started, the disease will run its course in the 
 district. 
 
 Since, then, the captive fox is one of the sources 
 of mange, this seems the right place to speak of the 
 disease. It is not necessary to go into the nature of
 
 138 THE FOX 
 
 the ailment, which is highly contagious so much so 
 that it has been said that horses have contracted it 
 from the masks of mangy foxes being suspended 
 from the saddle of a hunt servant, and that terriers 
 which have been used to bolt a mangy fox have 
 been found suffering from the disease. The only 
 way of dealing with mange is on the sound principle 
 that prevention is better than cure. It is profitable, 
 then, to examine into the causes of the disease. 
 These are the same as those which cause it in dogs : 
 a low state of health and a bad state of blood induced 
 by foul and dirty surroundings, improper food, and, 
 I think, anything that seriously lowers the vitality. 
 It used to be said that foxes hard run, which take 
 refuge in an earth when hot and wet, become mangy ; 
 but I can find no evidence of this. It may be so, 
 but I confess that I have no faith in the statement. I 
 believe the principal causes to be four : 
 
 First. Unwholesome captivity in fox-pits, pig- 
 styes, or any dirty place. 
 
 Second. Turned-down foxes bought from dealers, 
 that have travelled in dirty crates. It may be taken 
 as a certainty that markets which deal in such things 
 are simply hotbeds of mange, and that it is far better 
 to go short of foxes than to buy them. 
 
 Thirdly. Feeding on horseflesh or other flesh.
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 139 
 
 Foxes require fur, feathers, and apparently some 
 insect and vegetable food, for it will be noted that 
 the tame foxes of which I have written above were 
 fed with considerable attention to variety. 
 
 Fourthly. A lowered condition of health caused 
 by picking up poisoned rats, even when there is not 
 enough poison taken into the system to cause death, 
 or from being shot at and wounded. Several classes 
 of people, with or without murderous intent, if they 
 do not shoot foxes at least shoot at them. The 
 number of foxes so injured every year is very large. 
 The magnificent skin which I selected for description 
 belonged to a fox so shot at. The veteran first 
 whipper-in of the West Somerset told me that hounds 
 found this fox and he holloaed him away. The pack 
 ran the line for two fields and then threw up, when 
 Jack found the fox dead under a hedge. The late 
 Mr. Wilfred Marshall, who was then Master, sent the 
 body to Mr. Ell, of Dunster, for a post-mortem, and a 
 pellet was found in the lungs. No doubt directly 
 the fox began to run, h?emorrhage set up and choked 
 him. Such injuries are, I believe, very frequent 
 'causes of mange when they are not fatal. This 
 practice of shooting at foxes, with intent, perhaps, to 
 warn them off a particular place, is, I think, on the 
 increase. It will be found that where people are
 
 140 THE FOX 
 
 openly or secretly hostile to foxes, and such are nearly 
 always known in their own neighbourhood, there 
 mange will be prevalent and destructive. 
 
 Two other causes of mange have been put 
 forward : overcrowding i.e. foxes too thick on the 
 ground and in-breeding. I am inclined to suspect 
 that both are probably imaginary. 
 
 Foxes are relatively numerous, but there is not, 
 and cannot be, such crowding of wild foxes as to pro- 
 duce disease. Of course if disease be started by any 
 of the causes suggested above, where foxes are 
 plentiful, it is more likely to spread. As to in-breed- 
 ing, the habits of the fox forbid that supposition 
 and as a matter of fact much foreign blood has 
 been introduced of late years. Germany, France, 
 Belgium, Sardinia, and possibly Siberia, Scandinavia, 
 Scotland, and Wales, have all contributed to infuse 
 fresh blood into our English fox. 
 
 But from the disease we turn to its prevention, for 
 cure there is none. Of course the soundest method 
 is to cut off the contagion at its source. Turn down 
 no foxes except with the greatest circumspection. 
 Let there be no confined cubs, no poisoned rats, no 
 charges of shot 'To make him leave that.' And 
 above all, and this I believe to be the key of the 
 whole position, preserve the older vixens carefully.
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 141 
 
 But if the disease is already devastating whole 
 districts of a number of countries, what is to be done ? 
 Then only the most stringent methods will avail. 
 All the foxes within the infected area must be killed, 
 the natural earths be broken up, and artificial earths 
 picked to pieces and re-made. If for any reason 
 this is not practicable, then the following method 
 of fumigation is effectual. I once tried it, and I 
 believe with success, in the case of an earth which 
 the owner was unwilling to have disturbed. The 
 method was, I think, published in the ' Field ' many 
 years ago, but I take the recipe, as I used it, from a 
 useful book of sportsman's notes kept now for many 
 years, into which I copied it. 
 
 Two iron dishes should be procured and placed 
 one on the top of the other. In the upper one, put 
 common carbolic, and in the lower a red-hot heater 
 (such as a washerwoman uses in box irons). Put the 
 apparatus into the mouth of the earth, and fill up 
 the mouth carefully with clods. The vapour seems 
 to disinfect the earth, and does not cause foxes to 
 abandon it altogether. Two cautions are requisite : 
 first, that we should be quite sure that there is no 
 fox in the earth ; and secondly, that the person 
 using the apparatus must be careful not to inhale 
 the fumes.
 
 142 THE FOX 
 
 But the most stringent methods are the best, 
 and for this end all must work together landlords, 
 farmers, keepers, and members of the hunt. 
 
 Nor should we forget that Masters of Hounds must 
 themselves exercise self-denial. Two excellent coun- 
 tries I have known in which wealthy Masters intro- 
 duced mange by turning down foxes. In one case, 
 the Master wanted to have his country better than 
 good, and in the other the M.F.H. had made up his 
 mind to hunt more days in the week than his area 
 of covert justified. 
 
 There can be no doubt that it is far better for 
 sport to be content with the natural supply of foxes 
 which the country affords. It may be repeated here 
 once more that //"and alas ! it is a large ' if ' we 
 can have our fox-coverts kept quiet and left alone, 
 there will be plenty of foxes. Artificial earths, and 
 indeed all interference with nature, are expedients : 
 they are not the best way. I only except what are 
 called artificial coverts, for there is really no such 
 thing. All coverts, when once started, are natural 
 enough. What we mean is that we have made 
 judicious use of nature to assist our sport, by placing 
 the coverts as links between one section of the 
 country and another.
 
 THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 143 
 
 I believe firmly in keeping foxhunting wild, and 
 resisting as far as may be the encroachment of arti- 
 ficial sport. So long as we can preserve its character 
 as a wild sport, so long will it survive in the healthy 
 and prosperous condition it enjoys at the present 
 time.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FOX AS OUTLAW 
 
 IN parts of England only is the fox a welcome guest. 
 Everywhere else in the world, when he comes in 
 contact with man, he is an outlaw. Yet he survives 
 and holds his own in spite of gun, trap, and poison, 
 and although his cubs are dug out and massacred 
 whenever their hiding-place is discovered. Indeed 
 it is only when he is carefully preserved that we hear 
 of his degeneration. In the countries where he is 
 outlawed he is larger, sleeker, more powerful, more 
 cunning, and possessed of a marvellous power of 
 endurance. The largest, heaviest foxes come from 
 Scotland, Wales, and the fell country of Cumberland 
 and Westmorland, where there is no truce or 
 armistice in the warfare against their kind. 
 
 It is true that in some places on the European 
 Continent the fox was for a time valued as a trophy 
 in the game-bag, and received a certain amount of 
 protection. I have heard that in Denmark fox-drives
 
 THE FOX AS OUTLAW 145 
 
 were a favourite form of sport, and that in parts of 
 Germany the fox was esteemed for the sporting shots 
 he afforded. On some estates the host would like to 
 see a few foxes in the bag, and no doubt they were, 
 if not protected, yet spared. But in Denmark and 
 elsewhere the pheasant is becoming more common, 
 and the fox has no deadlier enemy than the pheasant, 
 unless it be the hare in Germany. Hare-drives on a 
 large scale are a favourite sport on some German 
 shootings, and to preserve the hares it is necessary to 
 keep down the foxes. Some German sportsman with 
 the national love of accurate statement has calculated 
 that each fox destroys seventy hares a year. I do not 
 know how this calculation was arrived at, but it has 
 had the effect of causing the fox to be proscribed 
 where its presence was, if not discouraged, yet winked 
 at by the owners and keepers. I have sometimes 
 been inclined to doubt if foxes could catch many 
 hares. The hare, if we may judge by her ruses when 
 hunted, is not much less cunning than the fox, and 
 certainly swifter. But the fox has a gift of apparently 
 planning-out his stratagems, and I have come to the 
 conclusion that he is a very successful hare-hunter, 
 and that the German sportsman may not be so far 
 out after all in his calculations. The fox hunts round 
 the field in which the hares are, and finds out their 
 
 L
 
 I 4 6 THE FOX 
 
 favourite smeuse in the hedgerow. He takes covert 
 near one of these, or even scratches out a sort of rough 
 trench so as to conceal himself more effectually, and 
 waits till a hare comes through the hedge, when he 
 springs upon her and carries her off. Occasionally 
 two foxes will hunt together for though the fox is 
 generally speaking a solitary, there is no fixity about 
 his habits any more than there is in his size, weight, 
 or the colour of his coat. He adapts himself in all 
 respects to his surroundings. At the same time I 
 think when two or more foxes are seen working 
 together, they are usually a dog and a vixen that have 
 paired, or it may be a vixen with one or more of her 
 cubs. It has been said that foxes in the highlands 
 combine to kill lambs and even full-grown sheep. I 
 have failed to find any sufficient confirmation of this. 
 But I should not like to say that it never happened, 
 for the study of such an animal as the fox is a whole- 
 some corrective to dogmatism. 
 
 But to return to the case of two foxes hunting 
 together. I have been told by a man who was a 
 gardener by day and a poacher by night, that he used 
 to take advantage of this habit of the fox. There was 
 a favourite feeding-ground of the hares (which were 
 carefully preserved) that was regularly worked by two 
 foxes from a neighbouring wood. One would take
 
 THE FOX AS OUTLAW 147 
 
 covert in the way I have already described, while the 
 other hunted the field, putting up the hares one after 
 another, one of which was sure to rush through the 
 ambush where the fox was hiding, and be caught. 
 The man would drive off the fox and appropriate the 
 hare. The same method of hunting was observed by 
 the late Charles St. John, in Morayshire, and he adds 
 that he has seen two foxes working in concert the 
 sandhills where rabbits abounded. Each of the two 
 took a side of the sandhill. 
 
 We cannot deny that the keeper who wishes to 
 preserve hares in large numbers has some justification 
 for his enmity to foxes. Indeed, this enmity is en- 
 couraged, in Mecklenburg and elsewhere, by a fixed 
 scale of gratuities for all vermin killed, among which 
 the fox is ranked as chief. 
 
 Yet even in those countries where the fox is 
 vermin, he is in a measure protected by foxhunting. 
 Large numbers of foxes are imported from the 
 Continent into England, chiefly from France and 
 Belgium. In Germany there are a few packs which 
 hunt bagged foxes, and they too must buy their 
 quarry. Scotch foxes are often bought and turned 
 down in England. Thus the fact that the fox has a 
 market value tends in some degree to prevent his 
 entire extermination. Of those foxes which are 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE FOX 
 
 brought from Scotland and Wales I am induced to 
 think that some find their way back. It is certain 
 that if we turn down foxes and earmark them, only a 
 very small number are brought to hand, and I think 
 that a few do actually work their way home. In 
 another chapter I have given a few instances of the 
 homing powers of foxes, and it is difficult to say what 
 the limit of those powers may be. 
 
 Of all the countries where the fox is an outlaw, 
 Scotland is the one in which he has most enemies. 
 Farmers, shepherds, and gamekeepers are his per- 
 severing foes ; but yet the struggle is not so uneven as 
 it seems. The fox has a way of rising to the occasion 
 and developing a wonderfully elusive cunning, and far 
 greater boldness under persecution. The very dangers 
 he escapes seem to give him courage, and he may 
 often be seen hunting by day as well as by night. He 
 grows to a large size on a varied diet, which ranges 
 from honey to moles, cats, and venison. He is accused 
 of sheep-stealing, but has the credit of all the mischief 
 done by dogs. Yet no doubt weakly lambs, sheep that 
 are in trouble, the young roedeer, and a wounded stag 
 may fall to his share. I am bound to say that in Wales 
 and Scotland he is believed to attack full-grown sheep, 
 but the principal evidence against him is the wool 
 and bones found in his den, which might equally come
 
 THE FOX AS OUTLAW 149 
 
 there as remains of sheep that have died of disease or 
 accident. But it would be difficult to persuade a 
 Welsh or Scottish farmer that the fox does not kill 
 sheep, and it is never wise to set oneself altogether 
 against the beliefs of practical men : they have a way 
 of proving right after all. 
 
 The methods by which war is made against the 
 fox are various. A good many foxes are trapped, 
 but the traps have to be most carefully set. The 
 smallest taint of man is detected. Moreover, if a fox 
 has once grasped in his mind the nature of a trap, he 
 cannot be induced to go near one again. If a fox 
 has once been caught by a foot, if he cannot drag the 
 trap away with him he will gnaw his foot off. In 
 England a three-legged fox soon falls a victim to the 
 hounds, but in Scotland he seems to get on very well, 
 and to be as sleek and well-looking as ever, and a 
 great deal more wary. 
 
 In Scotland the professional foxhunter was at 
 one time a familiar figure ; his duty was to track the 
 foxes to their dens and earths, and to draw out the 
 cubs with one of his clever terriers, or to organise a 
 hunt for the extinction of some well-known robber. 
 Mr. St. John, who was one of the best of observers, 
 gives a vivid description of the Highland foxhunter, 
 his steady old hounds, his wiry terriers and swift
 
 ISO THE FOX 
 
 ' streakers ' or lurchers. One passage will show us 
 at least that the hunted fox is the same everywhere. 
 The fox is described as coming leisurely along, sitting 
 down, and listening to the cry of the hounds just as 
 we have seen him do in the Midlands. But in the 
 Highlands the fox is shot without mercy when the 
 hounds have driven him past the ambush of his 
 enemies, or the terriers bolted him from his den- 
 Another plan is to put down a bait (hare or cat a 
 little gamey, or a bit of honeycomb, is the most 
 attractive), and then for the hunter to conceal himself 
 behind a rock within sight and gunshot. I think 
 that it is not generally known how partial the fox 
 is to cats. Probably in old times when the wild 
 cat was comparatively common in Scotland and else- 
 where the fox robbed the cat of its kittens in its 
 absence, for no fox would ever have tackled a wild 
 cat, which is the larger and more powerful animal of 
 the two. 
 
 But there is no doubt that the fox does hunt and 
 destroy the domestic cat, and it is possible that foxes 
 may be of some service in keeping down the half-wild 
 cats which are noted for their destructiveness in game- 
 coverts. But the most carefully laid ambush is some- 
 times defeated by the cunning of the fox, which will 
 circle unseen round the bait, and if a whiff of his
 
 THE FOX AS OUJLAW 151 
 
 enemy reaches his sensitive nostrils make himself 
 scarce at once. 
 
 In spite of the constant efforts to destroy them by 
 all possible means, foxes still multiply. When they 
 are much persecuted, they choose rocky and inac- 
 cessible places on the sides of mountains for their 
 lairs. Many of these caves and dens are not to be 
 reached by man or dog, and though, when the young 
 ones are laid up, the keeper or shepherd may watch 
 for the parents' going and coming, it is hard to get a 
 shot. Mr. Colquhoun says that the old ones bring 
 food in the morning and evening, and the fox, stealing 
 along in the uncertain light, often escapes observation 
 altogether, and at the best offers but a small mark as 
 he creeps towards the den. The difficulty is to see 
 the foxes at all, so clever are they in keeping out of 
 sight. It is rather the rule than the exception for the 
 fox to escape the gun. Again, the deer forests, which 
 must be kept quiet, are refuges for foxes. Some of 
 the deer forests, says Lord Granville Gordon, are 
 ' crawling with foxes.' On one occasion the stalker 
 had hit a stag hard and was surprised to find the animal 
 plodding wearily on instead of lying down. At last 
 he discovered that a fox was following him. When 
 the stag laid down for a short time the fox sat up a 
 few yards away watching him. No doubt foxes often
 
 152 THE FOX 
 
 taste venison, and know what a wounded stag means. 
 They stalk the stalkers, as we have already seen that 
 they haunt the steps of the pheasant-shooters, and 
 thus no doubt pick up many a rich meal of venison. 
 Occasionally, too, fawns and red-deer calves fall 
 victims to the fox. 
 
 In Wales there are many more packs of hounds 
 than in Scotland, but in the mountainous districts 
 a price is often set on foxes' heads. In those parts 
 where there is no regular hunting the farmers sub- 
 scribe to a fox fund. In Wales, as in Scotland, there 
 is often a professional fox-catcher, who receives 
 about five shillings a head for foxes. Two of the 
 most successful Welsh fox -catchers were women. One, 
 Margaret Evans, is said to have slain more foxes than 
 all the confederate hunts put together. Her hunting- 
 ground was round Snowdon. 
 
 Another famous Welsh huntress was Catherine 
 Thomas, who gained her livelihood by thinning down 
 foxes in Carnarvonshire and Merionethshire. She 
 used two or three couple of small Welsh terriers of 
 the old breed. Catherine kept the score of her kills 
 by notches cut in the mantelshelf of her cottage. At 
 her death there were 175 nicks. 
 
 As in Scotland, so in Wales, foxes are sometimes 
 bolted by terriers when the earth is accessible, and
 
 THE FOX AS OUTLAW 153 
 
 shot at as they come out. But this is an uncertain 
 method, for five foxes were once bolted from an 
 earth near Dolgelly and every one of them was 
 missed. In fact a fox is not easy to shoot. A Welsh 
 Master of Hounds was entertaining on one occasion 
 a brother M.F.H. from England. One morning a 
 messenger came to say that a farmer threatened to 
 shoot a fox that was lurking round his homestead. 
 ' Tell him to blaze away,' said the Master, calmly. 
 Then, turning to his guest, he said, ' You see, we 
 can't afford compensation. Most likely the gun 
 won't go off, or the old man will miss the fox. If he 
 does the fox will never give him a second chance.' 
 
 Many stories are told of the extraordinary en- 
 durance of Welsh foxes. The Ynsfor Otter Hounds 
 once hunted a hill-fox over the slopes of Snowdon" 
 for three hours. The late Lord Henry Vane- 
 Tempest's hounds had also some wonderful runs. 
 The hill-foxes, with their knowledge of the ground, 
 have every advantage, and slip over and round 
 obstructions which hinder and weary the hounds, so 
 that these stout hill-foxes of Wales are recorded to 
 have beaten hounds after running for four hours and 
 upwards, covering immense distances. 
 
 But it is not only in these wild regions that the 
 fox is an outlaw : there are many places in England
 
 154 THE FOX 
 
 where he is diminishing in numbers, even in hunting 
 countries. In England the fox can hardly exist unless 
 he is preserved, and it has come about that he has 
 fewer friends than he used to have in some districts. 
 This has come about by changes in the country 
 life of England which have brought in their train 
 alterations of sentiment about foxes in many a country- 
 side. In the first place, a resident landlord was an 
 influence in favour of the fox. Even if he did not 
 hunt, his neighbours did, and each man respected 
 the other's sport. The hunting squire preserved his 
 game in the rough fashion of those days, for the sake 
 of his shooting neighbour, who in his turn respected 
 the foxes, and, what is more important, obliged his 
 keeper to do so too. Game was much scarcer for- 
 merly, and men were content with bags that would 
 now be regarded as absurdly insignificant. I have 
 seen in the game-book of a great estate that when 
 the Prince Regent and Beau Brummell were shoot- 
 ing the bag was sixty-three pheasants. Game being 
 scarcer, foxes were fewer also than they are to-day, 
 for if undisturbed, the quiet and plenty of a care- 
 fully preserved covert are very attractive to them. 
 When there are more than a certain number of foxes 
 in a covert they are difficult to kill with hounds. 
 But in the days when there were but few pheasants

 
 THE FOX AS OUTLAW 155 
 
 and fewer foxes, it was not worth while to incur the 
 odium of vulpecide. The influence of the landlord 
 was therefore, on the whole, on the side of their 
 preservation. Even the shooting landowners favoured 
 hunting. It was the well-to-do farmer's natural 
 recreation. Hunting comes at a time of year when 
 the farmer can spare the time, if he has the money, 
 and in those days it was his own fault if he had not. 
 On the other hand, the shooting farmer was regarded 
 with disfavour on many estates. He was often on 
 terms which were hardly cordial with the gamekeeper, 
 and at odds with the agent or landlord about the 
 damage done by the game. Therefore he and his 
 sons hunted, and sometimes kept hounds. 
 
 There have been many notable farmers Masters 
 of Foxhounds or Harriers. Indeed, many historic 
 hunts owe their existence to the combination of the 
 farmers. The West Somerset Hunt, now for over 
 fifty years governed and supported by the Luttrell 
 family, began by the farmers helping a man named 
 Read, said to have been a retired butler, to keep a 
 few hounds after the fashion so vividly described by 
 Surtees in the account of Michael Hardy and his 
 hounds in the opening chapters of ' Handley Cross.' 
 But now many shootings are let, and if, as often 
 happens, the tenant is a kindly and liberal man, his
 
 156 THE FOX 
 
 influence is naturally cast on the side of the gun. 
 At the best the shooting man who wishes for a big 
 bag can hardly regard the hounds as anything but 
 a nuisance. It is not so much the toll taken of 
 pheasants that is objected to as the disturbance of 
 the coverts. It is only fair to remember that the 
 planning of a beat so as to give the sporting shots 
 which the true sportsman delights in, is a matter of 
 elaborate strategy, and a fox or foxes in the covert 
 will often cause the defeat of the best-laid scheme for 
 bringing the birds over the guns. The old school 
 of keepers had a sort of traditional hostility to foxes 
 handed down from the days when the fox was vermin, 
 but the modern keeper has developed a quite natural 
 antipathy to an animal which injures his credit and his 
 pocket, and at the best causes a great deal of work 
 if its misdeeds are to be counteracted. Even the 
 keeper's master is not enthusiastic about foxes. He 
 does not hunt, and it is a curious fact that those who 
 are devoted to particular games and sports regard 
 with disapproval other sports and games which they 
 do not care for. The shooting and hunting men 
 have something of the same feeling, each for the 
 other, that the orthodox in religion and politics have 
 for dissenters or opponents : they wonder at their 
 mental position, and have a quiet disapproval of their
 
 THE FOX AS OUTLAW 157 
 
 moral attitude. Thus between the imperfect sym- 
 pathies of the master and the active hostility of the 
 man, the fox is proclaimed an outlaw from some of 
 his once-favoured haunts. But there is another 
 change of greater importance because more far-reach- 
 ing. The farmers were once hunting men by pre- 
 dilection and necessity, and the old school still carry 
 on the tradition ; but the younger farmers are more in 
 sympathy with shooting than hunting partly because 
 of the fact that they often shoot over their own 
 farms as a right, partly because they cannot afford to 
 hunt. 
 
 Thus the sportsmen among them take to shooting 
 naturally, and the gamekeeper occupies the place and 
 exercises the influence which the huntsman formerly 
 had in the social life of the country-side. 
 
 Again, even the few partridges, pheasants, and 
 hares of a farm have a market value : the shooting 
 can be let. In some countries the rabbits are a 
 source of income, and the rabbits are let to profes- 
 sional trappers. Thus the unpopularity of the fox 
 spreads, and a kind of antipathy grows up against 
 him. There are hunts where the traditional love of 
 foxhunting has decreased, and the fox is no longer 
 safe even where there is little or no game. I know 
 estates where there is neither the one nor the
 
 158 THE FOX 
 
 other. Public opinion is changing about foxes in 
 some districts. Formerly, as I have said, the fox 
 represented the farmer's recreation : now he merely 
 means fewer rabbits and hares to shoot. We may 
 injure a man in his business, and he will forgive us ; 
 but interfere with his sport, and his enmity is aroused. 
 The fox is forgiven the damage his pursuit occasions, 
 but the partridges, rabbits, and hares he consumes 
 and drives away are not forgotten. And no doubt 
 it is true that a fox does more damage in an open 
 shooting than in coverts. The animal that can stalk 
 and catch a wild duck can probably catch a pheasant 
 now and again, and is no doubt likely to take a few 
 partridges. We have seen that he can catch hares 
 cleverly, and we know that rabbits are one of his 
 favourite foods. There is, in fact, more excuse for 
 dislike to foxes in the owner or tenant of a small 
 shooting than in the case of those who own or rent 
 many acres. 
 
 But there is one aspect of the fox that saves him 
 from becoming an outlaw, and that is his economic 
 value. If it costs a sovereign to shoot a pheasant, it 
 costs fifty times as much to kill a fox. 
 
 Thus the fox is a valuable animal to the district 
 in which he lives, and his value is increasing. 
 Forty years ago every fox killed in a certain country
 
 THE FOX AS OUTLAW 159 
 
 cost about i2/. los. Twenty years later, the sum rose 
 to 26/. per head, and at the present day is $61. This 
 allows nothing for the expenditure on hunting by the 
 followers of the chase, but is simply the money spent 
 by the Master and members of the Hunt on horses, 
 hounds, food, and wages, before the fox is brought 
 to hand. Thus a hundred pheasants represent ioo/. 
 of expenditure, while fifty foxes mean i,i5o/. circu- 
 lated in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Again, if we accept Mr. Sargent's figures given 
 in ' Thoughts on Sport,' the annual cost of hunting in 
 England, Ireland, and Scotland totals up at 4,25o,ooo/. 
 in round numbers. Suppose 30,000 foxes are killed 
 every year, the average cost of each fox is rather over 
 i4o/. I have selected these figures because I am 
 convinced that Mr. Sargent rather understates the 
 expenditure than over-estimates it. 
 
 Thus the outlawry of the fox in countries where 
 he can be hunted is a mistake from a pecuniary 
 point of view. To suppose that the money would 
 find its way by other channels into the same pockets 
 if there was no hunting is an error. Besides these 
 direct benefits, the fox is a principal agent in keeping 
 up the breed of horses. There is a continual ten- 
 dency to make our thoroughbreds mere sprinters, 
 which is kept in check by the steady demand for
 
 160 THE FOX 
 
 thoroughbred horses of the hunter type as stallions. 
 The hunter is, apart from its connection with sport, 
 by far the most generally useful horse in existence. 
 Foreign buyers are never tired of picking up mares 
 of the well-bred fourteen-stone hunter sort, and these 
 would become as obsolete as the old roadster if the 
 fox was not. It is difficult to exaggerate, though we 
 cannot now enlarge on, the benefits which the fox 
 confers on the nation which preserves him. It would 
 be nothing less than a revolution in the social and 
 economic life of our country districts if over a larger 
 tract of country than is now the case he should come 
 to be regarded as an outlaw.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FOX IN FABLE 
 
 THE fox is frequently mentioned in literature : he 
 is a favourite hero in folk-tales and fables in almost 
 every country. The East is the birthplace of the 
 fable, and indeed these stories could only have found 
 congenial soil at first where the doctrine of the 
 transmigration of souls was held. 
 
 To the people who believed that the soul of man 
 might find a prison in the shape of the lower animal 
 there was nothing wonderful or incredible in a fox, 
 a lion, or a frog speaking and thinking as a man 
 might do under like circumstances and with similar 
 limitations. The fable, indeed, anticipated the animal 
 psychology of Darwin and Romanes in that it assumes 
 that the minds of men and brutes differ in degree, 
 but not in kind. If we are to study the intelligence 
 of the lower animals it can only be by assuming that 
 within their limits their mind is the same as our own. 
 Otherwise we can know nothing about them, and 
 
 M
 
 1 62 THE FOX 
 
 the logical alternative is the belief that they are only 
 automata. 
 
 Fables have a special interest for author and 
 readers of a book like this. They enshrine the 
 earliest observations on natural history, and a con- 
 sideration of them may lead us to understand that 
 we have only inherited, not discovered, the study of 
 animal life. 
 
 But although the East is the cradle of the fable, 
 the fox as a hero belongs not to the East but to the 
 West. He makes no figure in the earlier Eastern 
 fables, and it is thought that the later Hindoo stories 
 in which the jackal stands for the type of cunning, 
 wisdom, or policy, are borrowed from the fox of Greek 
 fabulists. The fox's place in fable steadily grew in 
 importance, from the days when ysop pointed his 
 pithy sayings and illustrated his teaching with fables 
 drawn no doubt from popular stories in* vogue in 
 his day (about 620 B.C.), down to the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries, when the fox became the hero of 
 that most popular and elaborate of fables of which 
 many versions have come down to us. Of these the 
 best known are the Latin poem, ' Renardus Vulpes,' 
 the German ' Reineke Fuchs,' and the French ' Roman 
 de Renart.' 
 
 All the fabulists from /Esop onwards based their
 
 THE FOX IN FABLE 163 
 
 stories upon popular legends. It is curious to note 
 how in all countries and in all ages the character of 
 the fox has made an impression on the mind of man. 
 He has become the type of those who seek by the 
 exercise of wit and cunning to redress the inequality 
 greater in earlier times than now between strength 
 and weakness. The fox is a beast of prey and yet 
 not dangerous to man. He is widely distributed and 
 haunts the neighbourhood of our houses ; a thief and 
 a robber working by night ; sudden in his descents 
 and often escaping when hunted by men and dogs, 
 as the fables will show he always has been. 
 
 We have seen above how the fox has survived at 
 first in spite of pursuit, and later because he was 
 hunted. The character of the fox sketched in fable, 
 and elaborated in ' Reynard the Fox,' reflects the im- 
 pression made by him on the peasant mind. The fox 
 fable had its origin in the cabin of the peasant or the 
 hut of the serf. Reynard in the fables displays a type 
 which attracts and repels the peasant in all ages. 
 The poor man cannot but sympathise with the astute- 
 ness by which the fox outwits powerful, benevolent, 
 but withal capricious animals like the lion, while he 
 resents the trickery which robs his own hen-roost. 
 Superstitious himself, he envies the elegant freedom 
 of Reynard from scruples of conscience. Honest 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 THE FOX 
 
 and hard-working, he cannot altogether repress a 
 certain envy of the luxury and success won by wrong- 
 doing. Mr. Tulliver, though honest himself, would 
 yet prefer to have a ' raskill ' for a lawyer, as being 
 better able to cope with the Wakems, by whom he 
 himself was badgered and outwitted. The very 
 coarseness of some of the fox fables, and the rough 
 nature of the practical jokes which are invented for 
 ' Reynard the Fox,' are a mark of the origin of the 
 stories. When Reynard persuades the wolf to fish 
 in the hole in the ice, using his tail as a bait, and the 
 luckless wolf is frozen fast and eventually, attacked 
 by peasants, loses his tail by a blow from the priest's 
 wife, we can imagine how inextinguishable laughter 
 would arise round the fireside of the farmhouses when 
 the story was told. 
 
 The fables have their roots deep down in the 
 minds of the peasantry and reflect their virtues and 
 failings. These stories have the simplicity and 
 universality of interest and application which ensure 
 to them popularity and immortality. 
 
 No doubt the fables were adopted and adapted 
 by later writers. Phaedrus and La Fontaine gave 
 them the polish of literary genius and used them as 
 vehicles of satire or moralising. In later times, and 
 especially in the French versions, there was more
 
 THE FOX IN FABLE 165 
 
 than a touch of satire and a caricature of well-known 
 personages. The statesman used them as Machiavelli 
 does in ' The Prince ' to point his counsels of diplomacy, 
 and the mediaeval moralists discovered edification 
 in the simplest tales. A certain ecclesiastic of the 
 thirteenth century, Odo of Cheriton in Kent, seems 
 to have put together a book of fables with morals, for 
 the benefit of preachers, who were to use them to 
 point and illustrate their sermons. 
 
 The following fable is of Eastern origin, but the 
 application is Odo's own. 
 
 The fox and the cat meet. The former boasts of 
 the number of artifices by which he has escaped the 
 hounds. The cat confesses he has but one. ' Come 
 with me,' says the fox, ' and I will teach you mine.' 
 But when the hounds came on their line, ' I will go 
 no further,' exclaimed the cat, ' I wish to use my own 
 artifice,' and with that he scrambled up a tree. 
 Reynard went on and was killed after running a ring. 
 The death of the fox is described in such a way that 
 we might imagine Master Odo himself a foxhunter. 
 The cat exclaims, ' Oh, Reynard, Reynard, all your 
 artifices were not equal to my simple one.' By the 
 cat we are to understand the simple souls who know 
 but one way the right one. Reynard symbolises 
 barristers, attorneys, tricksters, full of dodges. But
 
 166 THE FOX 
 
 when the devils hunt them the tricksters are seized 
 by the demons, while the just escape to heaven 
 exclaiming, ' All your cleverness could not save 
 you.' 
 
 This fable is interesting as showing the antiquity 
 of foxhunting, and an illustration of it occurs to 
 everyone who has drawn a covert for jackal in India. 
 The hounds touch on a wild cat and there is a furious 
 chorus, which ceases as the cat takes refuge in a tree 
 and allows the pack to settle on the line of their 
 jackal. Every Indian M.F.H. knows what a trial 
 of patience the cat's one wile is to him. 
 
 But it would take us too far to follow the fox 
 fables into the various lines they offer. We must 
 turn away from the satire of knights, 'priests and 
 kings, which varies from gentle raillery to fierce 
 diatribe, and confine ourselves to one line of thought, 
 the extent to which these fables of the fox are based 
 on fact. And very real observation of the lives and 
 habits of animals underlies these stories. In the 
 present day we have returned to the simpler methods 
 of the original fabulists and care more to tell of what 
 the animal is and does, than to confirm a philosophy 
 like the Hindoo, teach common sense by its example 
 like the Greeks, or point a moral or edge a satire like 
 the Roman or mediaeval writers.
 
 THE FOX IN FABLE 167 
 
 Let us begin then with the relationship of the 
 fox to the other animals the lion, the wolf, the 
 badger and the hare. Who that has sat up at night 
 in the jungle will not recognise the submissive 
 cunning of the fox to the lion or tiger? At the 
 approach of the lordly beasts, the jackal or fox slinks 
 humbly away. Yet if by chance the royal beasts have 
 a kill, how quickly and silently the smaller beasts 
 return ! There are materials for a whole series of 
 fables in the very attitude of the fox or jackal in 
 the presence of the lion or tiger. The jackal certainly 
 knows when the tiger is hunting, and while he avoids 
 the king of the jungle, is on the alert to gain his 
 share of the spoil. There is a touch of nature too 
 in the fable when he comes into contact with the 
 lion over the division of the calf (' Reineke Fuchs,' 
 Bk. 3, cap. 13). The fox is driven to hunt by the 
 necessities of his vixen and her cubs, which we know 
 is the case since a fox takes a share in the support of 
 the cubs, and one keeper has assured me will feed the 
 litter altogether if the mother is killed The fox is 
 then driven to danger by the necessity of the case 
 It is only the story of the division of the calf which is 
 fable, the fox's share in the transaction being quite 
 true to nature. The lion, the fox, and the wolf go 
 out hunting together. A calf is killed, and the
 
 1 68 THE FOX 
 
 lion asks the wolf to divide the spoil. The wolf, 
 being no courtier, suggests an equal division of the 
 calf. The lion then turns to the fox, who assigns 
 the greater part to the lion, and the hoofs only to 
 himself and the wolf; the latter complains and is 
 driven off by the lion, while the fox remains and 
 basks in the royal favour. 
 
 In the enmity between the wolf and the fox we 
 have only the embellishment of a literal truth, and 
 these stories of the wolf outwitted by the fox are among 
 the oldest fables, bearing traces of their popular origin 
 in a certain coarseness of humour and detail. We 
 have already seen that the wolf is the most dangerous 
 enemy of the fox. The idea that the fox deceives 
 and robs the wolf ' Saepe condita luporum fiunt 
 rapinse vulpium ' (Plautus) is probably literally true. 
 The wolf, like all the rest of the Cantdce, buries 
 what he cannot eat ; the fox's keen nose finds the 
 hoards and he digs them up. Even the wrongs 
 against the family of the wolf laid to the fox's door 
 in all the Reynard poems, have a certain foundation, 
 partly in fact, partly in the universal belief of the 
 people in the interbreeding of fox and dog and wolf. 
 Everyone who has read the account of the relation 
 between the fox and the badger, indifferently called 
 the fox's uncle or nephew, will recognise much
 
 THE FOX IN FABLE 169 
 
 observation of nature in the description of the simple, 
 kindly, harmless badger played upon by the superior 
 intelligence of the fox. The idea of relationship 
 between them is based on the fact that they haunt 
 the same coverts, and sometimes inhabit different 
 branches of the same earth. It is noteworthy in this 
 respect that when, knowingly or not, the. fox in 
 conversation with the badger disclaims any very close 
 relationship with the wolf, this is also true to modern 
 opinion of the natural history of the two animals. 
 
 Everywhere the fox is believed to impose on the 
 simplicity of the badger, and often to occupy the 
 earth the badger has been at the labour of digging. 
 This tendency of the fox to make use of the labours 
 of other animals, and to reap where he has not sown, 
 reappears constantly in fact and fable. The fox 
 watches the hen-roost, follows the shooters in the 
 covert to make an easy prey of the wounded game, 
 and digs up the wolves' caches. 
 
 The fox is regarded more favourably from a moral 
 point of view in the innumerable Slavonic fables, or 
 versions of fables, to illustrate his tendency to make 
 use of other people. The fox and the hare were 
 neighbours one winter, when the fox built a house of 
 snow, the hare made one of wood. In spring-time, 
 when the sun grew hot, the fox's house melted, and
 
 170 THE FOX 
 
 he proceeded to take possession of the hare's by means 
 of a fraud. 
 
 It is, indeed, a notable instance of the truth of the 
 natural history of the fables, that when the fox comes 
 into contact with the hare, he is represented as always 
 succeeding rather by cunning than by force the 
 size, strength, and swiftness of the hare making this 
 an absolute necessity. Thus in ' Reineke ' the fox 
 beguiles Lampe the hare into his castle, where he is 
 devoured, and there is a quaint and simple bit of 
 comedy when Reynard persuades Bellyn, the ram 
 companion and fellow-ecclesiastic of the hare, that 
 the hare is comfortable inside with his aunt. Rey- 
 nard always lays particular stress on relationship 
 when he is brewing mischief. At the same time 
 Reynard gives Bellyn the head of the hare to carry to 
 the king. But the fox is not infallible and is some- 
 times himself deceived. 
 
 Everyone knows the famous and ancient fable of 
 the fox and the crow and the piece of cheese, but 
 there are several variations of this in a Russian fable 
 in which the fox is caught by flattery. A fox comes 
 under a tree on a branch of which a cock is sitting. 
 The fox persuades the cock to come down to make 
 his confession. The fox is in the Slavonic, as in 
 the Latin and German stories, often the ecclesiastic.
 
 THE FOX IN FABLE 171 
 
 The cock flies down and is seized, but he flatters the 
 fox so dexterously that he is allowed by him to escape. 
 Even quainter is the Italian fable of the chicken that 
 wished to go out to feed with the cock in the open 
 plain. ' You had better not,' the father advises, ' or 
 you may fall a victim to the fox.' However, the 
 chicken will listen to no advice and insists on going. 
 The fox captures it and then the chicken pleads, ' If 
 you let me go now I shall grow fat, lay eggs, bring 
 up chickens, and you will then have far more than 
 if you devour me.' The fox agrees, and the chicken 
 rears a hundred chicks. With these she returns 
 home, and each chick carries in its mouth a straw. 
 The fox is waiting. ' What are all these chickens 
 carrying ? ' ' Foxes' tails,' replies the old hen ; and 
 the fox flies in dismay, for, like the legendary devil, 
 he is somewhat easily deceived. 
 
 But in Greek and Latin fables the fox is as a rule 
 a successful deceiver. He fails only when he tries 
 to beguile his own kindred. The fox that lost his 
 brush is proverbial, but he only seems to me to have 
 been before his time, for the great runs given in 
 almost every country by a bob-tailed fox that is, a fox 
 which has by some accident lost his brush are well 
 known ; and the brush, though, as I have elsewhere 
 suggested, it may be useful to the fox in stalking its
 
 172 THE FOX 
 
 prey, when clogged with mud and wet is a most 
 undoubted encumbrance. 
 
 If we turn to particular authors, I am struck with 
 the accuracy of the observation o. ^Esop and 
 Phaedrus. In the latter, the fox is among the drama- 
 tis persona of the fabulists the most true to nature. 
 There is the remark of the ape when he begs a portion 
 of the fox's brush ' What,' he asks, ' is the use of 
 dragging such a mass of hair through the mire ? ' The 
 fox replies that he would drag a brush much longer and 
 heavier rather than lend the ape a bit of it. With the 
 moral I am glad to say we have nothing to do, but 
 two things are here set out : that the brush is often a 
 drag on the hunted fox, yet that on the whole it is an 
 advantage to the race an assistance in hunting (and 
 by the way, the fox tucks his nose into it when asleep), 
 a comfort in his domestic moments. There is a keen 
 touch of observation, too, in the case of the fox 
 who would be king. Granted by Jupiter a human 
 form and seated on his throne, the fox espies a beetle 
 in the corner, and springs down to capture it. 
 Jupiter promptly sends him back to the woods 
 ' Live as you have been accustomed to do, since you 
 are fit for no higher position.' 
 
 There was a peculiar aptness about this, for the 
 fox is one of the most untameable of animals. His
 
 THE FOX IN FABLE 173 
 
 natural instincts may be subdued by discipline or 
 kindness, but he is underneath it all always the beast 
 of prey. Those who have read the earlier chapters 
 of this book will note the accuracy of observation 
 which makes the beetle such an attraction. We are 
 more familiar with this fable in another form, that of 
 the cat and the mouse, but we may recognise the 
 complete truthfulness which underlies them in either 
 case. This accuracy we shall find equally in the 
 Oriental, the Greek, and the Latin fabulists, the 
 common origin in popular tales giving similar 
 characteristics to all alike. 
 
 Another fable which has something more than a 
 basis in fact occurs in several versions of the Reynard 
 epic. It is winter, and Reynard is hard pressed for 
 food. A fish hawker with herrings comes along in 
 his cart. The driver sees Reynard stretched lifeless 
 by the roadside. A fox's skin has and has always 
 had a certain value. So the man picks up the lifeless 
 fox and flings him into the cart. But Reynard was 
 only shamming, as is the well-known habit of jackals 
 and foxes. He eats the herrings and escapes with 
 some eels, which he takes home to his cubs, who 
 
 Si lievent centre lor pere 
 
 Qui s'en venoit les meunez sauz 
 
 Gai et ioienz et liez et bauz.
 
 I 7 4 THE FOX 
 
 Everything in this little tale is true, except the 
 purpose for which the fox shams death, which is per- 
 haps a little beyond his intelligence. 
 
 Again, if the fox ever did succeed in leading the 
 bear astray, it would doubtless be by means of honey, 
 as in the fable. It is at least true that the fox knows 
 where the honey is, since he digs out the bumble- 
 bees' nests. The fox has quite a sweet tooth, and 
 the old fable of the fox and the grapes is but a 
 simple transcript of an incident which anyone might 
 have seen in a grape-growing country, the moral 
 being just such as a shrewd mother wit might add. 
 
 Indeed, the natural history of the earlier periods 
 of the fables was more truthful than that of the 
 seventeenth century, for Bishop Pontoppidan, who 
 wrote a Natural History of Norway, informs us that 
 the fox was in the habit of watching the otter going 
 to fish. Reynard then concealed himself behind a 
 stone. When the otter came ashore with his prey, he 
 made such a spring upon him that the affrighted 
 animal ran off and left his booty behind. The otter 
 is quite as strong and fierce as the fox, and is very 
 unlikely to be alarmed thus. 
 
 The same writer tells us that a certain person was 
 surprised to observe a fox laying some cods' heads in 
 a row. The fox then hid himself and caught the first
 
 THE FOX IN FABLE 175 
 
 crow that came down. Now there are just two 
 touches of truth here : one fact is the surprise of the 
 person who saw this, the second that the fox only 
 caught one crow, for these shrewd birds would 
 certainly take warning from the first mishap. After 
 all, the old story of the fox, the crow, and the bit of 
 cheese is just as good and quite as true a way of 
 accounting for a fact which the fabulists had observed, 
 that there is a great enmity between foxes and crows. 
 Who has not seen the crows and magpies swoop 
 and chatter at a fox nearly at the end of his powers, 
 after a long chase ? Is it that two of a trade both 
 arrant thieves cannot agree, or that the crows foresee 
 the fox's end, and a possible meal for themselves ? 
 At all events the fox's character is of the worst, and 
 Buffon draws a lively account of the fox listening to 
 the crowing of the cocks and hens, and forming his 
 plans accordingly. Probably, not being a foxhunter, 
 that great writer exaggerated the iniquities of the 
 fox. Somervile, too, shows that the fox in his time 
 had not had his misdeeds condoned for the pleasure 
 he gave : 
 
 From his kennel sneaks 
 
 The conscious villain, see he skulks along 
 
 Sleek at the shepherd's cost, and plump with meals 
 
 purloined. 
 So thrive the wicked here below,
 
 176 THE FOX 
 
 Or again, when the wolves had been destroyed : 
 
 But yet alas the wily fox remained, 
 
 A subtle pilfering foe prowling around 
 
 In midnight shades and wakeful to destroy. 
 
 In the full fold the poor defenceless lamb 
 
 Seized by his guileful arts with sweet warm blood 
 
 Supplies a rich repast. 
 
 The fox is not quite such villain as he is painted, 
 and in England at least probably seldom actually 
 kills a healthy lamb. He often has the credit of 
 mischief done by wandering and licentious curs. So 
 that it is quite a pleasure to find that in Russian 
 fable the fox is a benevolent character, and works for 
 the benefit of the hero much as Puss-in-Boots or 
 Dick Whittington's Cat does. Perhaps, however, the 
 methods by which the fox brings fortune to Buhtan 
 in the Russian story, are more ingenious than moral. 
 Buhtan has but five kopeks. The fox changes them 
 into small coins and asks the Czar to lend him some 
 bushels to measure the money in. The bushels are 
 declared by the fox to be too small. The fox takes 
 care to leave a few coins at the bottom when the 
 bushels are returned. The Czar is struck, as he was 
 intended to be, with the riches of Buhtan. Then the 
 fox asks for the Czar's daughter as Buhtan's wife. 
 The Czar asks to see the proposed bridegroom.
 
 THE FOX IN FABLE 177 
 
 Buhtan is poorly dressed, so the fox rolls him in a 
 muddy ditch and then goes to the Czar and tells him 
 of the accident. The Czar lends a dress. Buhtan is 
 somewhat uneasy in his new splendour. The fox 
 accounts for his embarrassment by saying that his 
 friend was never so badly dressed before. Then 
 Buhtan is struck with amazement at some golden 
 ware. The resourceful fox declares that his surprise 
 is caused because these fittings are only used in 
 Buhtan's bath-rooms at home. This so surprised the 
 Czar that the wedding ceremony takes place, and 
 the fox leads bride and bridegroom to an enchanted 
 palace. 
 
 After the age of fable, in England at least, the 
 fox becomes of some importance, but of less literary 
 interest, and in modern times the literature of the 
 fox deals with his place in sport. The horse and the 
 hound were made for each other, says Mr. Jorrocks, 
 and the fox is the link to bind them together, and 
 the immortal grocer of Great Coram Street sums up 
 the place of the fox in story. ' The Life of a Fox,' 
 by Tom Smith, successively Master of the Hambledon, 
 Craven, and Pytchley Hunts, only deals with the 
 episodes of the fox's life that have to do with the 
 chase, and only once has the fox been written of, 
 and written of well, for his own sake. In a charming 
 
 N
 
 i;8 THE FOX 
 
 series of sketches, the late George Rooper deals with 
 the life of a fox, and both by the accurate details he 
 gives of a fox's life and the charming style in which 
 it is narrated, makes us regret the death of one 
 who had taken the highest place as a writer of the 
 sportsman-naturalist type. Most people who have 
 written of the fox have thought of him only as the 
 hunted and not as one of the most resourceful of 
 hunting animals. 
 
 The fox is sometimes written of as though he 
 possessed a cunning and cleverness beyond the range 
 of any animal. It is probably his physiognomy 
 which has gained him an even greater credit than 
 he has deserved. The artists who have painted him 
 have forgotten the beast of prey and have read into 
 their ideas the character of the hero of the Epic ot 
 Reynard; so that foxes are seldom drawn as they 
 really are, but as it is supposed they are. The foxes 
 of artists, however anatomically accurate, have for the 
 most part an expression of human intelligence, not 
 the look of the wild, shy, savage, little beasts of prey 
 they are. 
 
 In this book I have tried to keep to the plain 
 truth, yet if it had not been for the fabulist and the 
 foxhunter the creature would probably never have 
 had a book to himself.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 COUSIN JACK 
 
 THE jackal is more nearly related to the dog than to 
 the fox, indeed the animal is in the direct line of 
 the pedigree of the dog, and it is said that the jackal 
 and dog breed freely together, which, as we have 
 seen, the dog and the fox will not do. Yet though 
 I have spent many years in India and have hunted 
 the jackal with both greyhounds and foxhounds, and 
 thus often found myself in those places where jackals 
 are most common, I have seen only a few dogs that 
 look like jackal hybrids and have never killed a jackal 
 that showed any trace of the cross. Yet jackals are 
 commonly found near villages where pariah dogs of 
 both sexes wander at perfect liberty. The assertion 
 of this cross is made by naturalists of repute, but 
 such crosses apparently do not take place except 
 in the case of animals in confinement. Now we 
 know that the wolf and the dog cross freely, and the 
 sledge dogs of the north have much wolf blood in 
 
 N 2
 
 I So THE FOX 
 
 them, the cross being generally between wild wolves 
 and the female dogs of the traders. 
 
 In appearance, in habits, and in the way he runs 
 before hounds the jackal is strikingly like a fox. 
 The Indian jackal, which may or may not be of the 
 same species as the European or African (there is 
 much difference of opinion on this point), is very 
 widely distributed in India, and is also found in 
 Ceylon and Burmah. In Southern Afghanistan there 
 were few or no jackals, but they followed our armies 
 up the Bolan Pass, attracted by the abundance of 
 food a camp affords. I have heard it said that the 
 jackals followed the armies in the same way during 
 the first Afghan war, and gradually disappeared after 
 the English had left. 
 
 In India the jackal is to a certain extent protected 
 on account of its usefulness as a scavenger. Its 
 strange weird notes, like those of a ghostly pack of 
 hounds in full cry, may be heard even in the outskirts 
 of the most populous cities. In its habits the jackal 
 is, like the fox, a hunter by night and a seeker of con- 
 cealment by day. Though jackals live on carrion 
 and offal in the neighbourhood of towns and villages, 
 in the jungle they are true hunters, and chase and 
 overpower by numbers antelopes, goats, and sheep, 
 choosing generally the young or weakly animals.
 
 COUSIN JACK 1 81 
 
 The jackal is as carnivorous as the fox, and like 
 the fox has a sweet tooth, loving grapes and sugar- 
 canes. Every Master of Hounds in India knows that 
 the sugar-cane crops are a safe draw for a jackal. 
 Like the fox, too, the jackal makes a burrow or more 
 often uses one ready made, and there lays up its litter, 
 which varies in number from three to five. The 
 jackal, however, lives above ground except in the 
 breeding season, and it far more rarely goes to ground 
 when hunted than the English fox, while as to the 
 Indian fox, it is difficult to keep him above ground 
 for any length of time. The jackal is larger than the 
 English fox, stands somewhat higher on the legs, but 
 his brush is to that of Reynard as a shaving brush 
 is to a spoke brush, and is in fact, a very poor apology 
 for the once much-prized trophy of the home hunting 
 fields. But the jackal is an animal of great endurance 
 and can run before hounds for a long time. The 
 longest chase of a jackal I ever had lasted about 
 three hours and a half. I found my quarry about 
 7.30 A.M. and killed him a little before n A.M. 
 
 The jackal, however, has certain advantages over 
 the fox when being hunted, in that hounds in India 
 are seldom in as good condition as in England. 
 Moreover, Northern India, in which my experience 
 lies, is not a good scenting country. Luckily the
 
 1 82 THE FOX 
 
 jackal has a powerful odour, and hounds as a rule 
 enter readily to the scent. 
 
 The jackal has in the East the same reputation 
 for cunning and knavishness as the fox has with us, 
 and in the Indian fables he takes much the same 
 place as the fox. In fact, as we have seen, many of 
 the stories which are told of the fox by the Greek 
 fabulists are related of the jackal in Indian folk- 
 lore. Although the first idea of the fable took its 
 rise among the Brahmins and found congenial soil 
 amongst the Indian Buddhists, when once the Greeks 
 had the idea they made it their own and repaid 
 the debt, and the jackals of later Indian fable 
 probably were borrowed from the stories of Greek 
 foxes. For wherever there was contact between 
 the Indians and Greeks there was also a reciprocal 
 exchange of ideas. Each borrowed from the other. 
 
 But however this may be, it is evident that the 
 character of the jackal and the fox, as types of 
 cunning, is of very great antiquity ; the former is 
 called in Sanskrit the 'cheater of animals,' and in 
 this description he is found in the Mahabharata. The 
 jackal, the tiger, the wolf, the mongoose, and the 
 mouse truly, a happy family, to be imagined only 
 by the writer believing in the transmigration of souls 
 go out hunting together. The jackal persuades the
 
 COUSIN JACK 18; 
 
 tiger to kill a black buck. Then he tells the tiger 
 that the mouse has threatened to kill him. The tiger, 
 much insulted, starts off in pursuit of the mouse. 
 In the meantime the mouse comes for his share. 
 The jackal tells him that the mongoose has bitten 
 the flesh, and that, imbued as that animal is with 
 snake poison, it would be dangerous to touch it. 
 The mouse therefore goes off. Then the wolf 
 appears, but, as in the fox fables, he is both stupid 
 and cowardly. He believes the jackal at .once when 
 the latter tells him that the tiger means to kill him, 
 and runs away. There is only the mongoose, and 
 the jackal simply bluffs him by saying that he has 
 killed the other three animals. Whereupon the 
 mongoose too departs, and the jackal eats the whole 
 antelope. 
 
 There are, in Sanskrit, two interesting variants of 
 the story of the fox which reveals its nature by a 
 sudden impulse to catch a beetle. In the first the 
 jackal, having fallen into some dye-pots, comes out 
 in such gorgeous tints that the other animals, struck 
 by his magnificence, unanimously elect him king. 
 For a time all goes well, until one night he hears the 
 other jackals howling, and, unable to restrain himself, 
 he joins in. His true nature is thus discovered, and 
 he is torn to pieces by the lion as a usurper. The
 
 1 84 THE FOX 
 
 other is the story of the jackal brought up by the 
 tigress with her cubs, which shows his mean origin 
 by running away in cowardly fashion when his foster- 
 brothers attack an elephant. 
 
 There is also a kind of fable in proverb which 
 comes from the East, and describes the jackal as 
 being the lion's provider. I think that when the 
 larger animals are on the prowl the jackals haunt 
 their footsteps in hopes of picking up some share of 
 the prey.' It is even possible that they may be 
 sometimes, in a sense, the lion's or tiger's provider. 
 Suppose a pack of jackals to have pulled down an 
 antelope, or killed a wandering sheep ; if the tiger or 
 leopard, to whom the cries of the jackal pack prob- 
 ably tell what is going on, appear, the jackals would 
 perforce retire at once and give up their quarry. In 
 such cases the jackals sometimes linger so close as 
 to be killed by the tiger. The dead bodies of jackals 
 are not seldom found near the kills of the tiger, so 
 that the jackals are sometimes involuntarily the 
 provider of the feast for their betters. It was some 
 incident of this kind, some rapid generalisation of 
 a rustic wit, that provided us with that kind of natu- 
 ral history which, like the stories of Bishop Pont- 
 oppidan related above, is also fable. But when the 
 larger carnivorous animals are hunting, the jackal
 
 COUSIN JACK 185 
 
 awakes. Every Anglo-Indian sportsman knows the 
 weird cry by which the jackal warns his kin that the 
 tiger is abroad in the jungle : a cry of warning no 
 doubt, but also a call to the pack to look out for 
 plunder. Everyone who has sat up by a kill knows 
 that if the tiger is scared away the jackals are 
 quickly heard pulling and snarling over the carcase. 
 
 Infinitely weaker than the tiger, the jackal has 
 this advantage over the royal beast in the struggle 
 for existence, that he is not much afraid of man. 
 The natives, however, believe that the jackal that 
 utters the peculiar note to which I have referred is 
 a solitary driven from the pack. Such outcasts, they 
 say, attach themselves to the tiger, leading him to his 
 prey by their superior sense of smell, and perhaps 
 acting as scouts. They think that the jackal some- 
 times sees that all is clear in the neighbourhood 01 
 a kill, and that it utters its strange cry as a signal 
 to the tiger. 
 
 A story is told of a sportsman who was waiting 
 for deer at night. He heard the peculiar cry of 
 the jackal, soon after a tiger made its appearance, 
 and the watcher forthwith became a convert to the 
 native belief. I am very unwilling to put aside the 
 beliefs of natives as being altogether baseless, but 
 this evidence hardly seems as convincing as it was to
 
 1 86 THE FOX 
 
 the sportsman in question. The peculiar cry must 
 have some meaning, and it must either be a warning 
 or a call to the pack, or partly one and partly the 
 other. On the other hand, it may be a signal to the 
 tiger by his appointed companion, the solitary jackal, 
 though I do not think this is so. It is easy to 
 imagine a communication by an animal to one of its 
 own kind : it is not so clear that different animals can 
 convey their meanings to each other by means of 
 sound. It is possible, however, that their actions 
 may, and do, serve as a warning or a hint. Thus we 
 can imagine a vulture wheeling in the clear sky, and 
 seeing a hunting jackal, taking a sweep in the direc- 
 tion the beast was going, and thus being led to a 
 carcase. On the other hand, the sight of vultures 
 gathering would certainly tell its tale to the jackal, 
 supposing his keen nose had not first warned him of 
 the prey. 
 
 I once had an interesting glimpse of the different 
 grades of jungle society. I was looking for small 
 game when I came upon the carcase of a heifer killed 
 probably by a leopard. These animals were fairly 
 numerous in the neighbourhood. However, the 
 leopard had gone away with the daylight. On the 
 carcase, growling and tearing, were two hyenas. At a 
 little distance was a ring of large vultures. Behind
 
 COUSIN JACK 187 
 
 the vultures was a circle of jackals, behind the jackals 
 again another ring of black crows, and behind the 
 crows a number of mynahs. So intent were all of 
 them, that they did not see me till I was fairly close ; 
 then the hyenas bolted they are always cowardly 
 brutes but the vultures spread their great wings, 
 hopped forward in their own peculiar ghastly way, 
 and were soon tearing at the carcase. The other 
 circles closed in. A few hours afterwards I came back. 
 The carcase was gone, the bones picked clean, and a 
 few gorged vultures sat humped up on the stunted 
 trees after the fashion of their race. There are trees 
 in the more desert parts of India that look as if they 
 grew on purpose for vultures to perch in. 
 
 The jackal is hunted in India in three ways : with 
 greyhounds, with a bobbery pack (that is one made 
 up of any kind of dog that will hunt, from a grey- 
 hound to a fox-terrier), and with foxhounds. At one 
 time I kept a brace of English greyhounds, but soon 
 parted with them. They are altogether too fast for 
 the jackal, and give but poor sport. The bobbery 
 pack is difficult to control and very unsteady, but 
 they often show a fast gallop in an open country, 
 though as a rule they are not of much use in covert. 
 They do not pack well, and as there are often many 
 jackals together, it is rather difficult to make them
 
 1 88 THE FOX 
 
 settle upon one of them. The best fun is to be had 
 by intercepting a jackal and laying the pack on as he 
 slinks home across an open plain at daybreak. Then, 
 if the pack be well selected, and there are a few 
 hounds and terriers to throw their tongues when the 
 jackal is lost sight of, some good gallops may be 
 enjoyed. Probably, for the man who desires to ride 
 hard, and to whom the hunt is little and the gallop 
 much, this is the best form of jackal-hunting. 
 
 I once kept a small bobbery pack consisting of 
 two or three couple of foxhounds bought from a 
 native gentleman, a spaniel, a couple of fox-terriers 
 and a mongrel. The spaniel was invaluable : he had 
 a perfect genius for finding a jackal, and if there 
 was one in a patch of covert he invariably went 
 straight to the place and roused him. A dog of 
 great intelligence, he was silent at first, but he learned 
 from the hounds to throw his tongue after a time. 
 But I fear he was sadly mortified, when the run really 
 began, to find himself left behind. The hounds, ot 
 course, were far too fast for him. The terrier had a 
 most excellent nose, and carried a line over a bad 
 bit of scenting ground in a wonderful way. The 
 hounds trusted her, and would fly to her sharp 
 ' yap yap ' as readily as to the deeper challenge of an- 
 other hound Many a pleasant morning and evening
 
 COUSIN JACK 
 
 gallop we had with this little pack, and they taught 
 me something about hunting and something also 
 about the habits of the jackals. 
 
 One evening I had run a jackal into some reed-beds 
 near a river. The short Indian twilight was closing 
 in, and I was sitting in an open space collecting my 
 little pack, when I caught a gleam of light, and saw 
 that all about me were many eyes. A ring of silent 
 jackals was seated all round the pack. It was a most 
 eerie sight, and reminded me of the stories I had 
 heard of jackals setting on greyhounds in order to 
 rescue a comrade in difficulties. But this incident 
 also gave me an insight into the ways of the jackal. 
 In the morning we generally found the jackals going 
 home one by one, and I came to the conclusion that 
 the creature is solitary by day, but gregarious at night, 
 and that I had probably hit on the trysting-place of a 
 clan of jackals. 
 
 I think it is likely that as the foxes hunt moire 
 or less in families in their early days, so the jackals, 
 never having been as much hunted as the foxes, 
 retain the habit of hunting together in families or 
 clans. There is a faint trace of this clan feeling in 
 the way that hounds of the same family are found to 
 hunt together. Every huntsman will tell us that a 
 father and son, or a mother and daughter, may often
 
 igo THE FOX 
 
 be seen to work together. It is also well known that 
 hounds drafted from some kennels will pack well 
 together while others from certain packs will not. 
 Miss Serrell writes that, whereas her famous working 
 terrier, 'Sharper,' would attack any strange terrier 
 when the latter first joined the pack, he would never 
 attack his own sons. 
 
 In the jackal we are a step nearer to the primitive 
 community life of the dog tribe, and we see the 
 instincts of the pack to combine at night for support 
 and defence. This we may add to the instances 
 recorded above of the correctness of observation 
 which underlies so many fables. The combination 
 for a common end is, as Mr. Darwin says, a mark that 
 social animals are of a higher level of intelligence 
 than solitary ones. 
 
 Everyone who has hunted jackals has learned 
 two other facts about them : that they are exceedingly 
 tenacious of life, and that they feign death in the 
 most convincing fashion. I have seen a bobbery 
 pack run into a jackal and apparently kill him. 
 The dogs have worried the body, though they 
 have not torn him, for a jackal's skin is most extra- 
 ordinarily tough. If the jackal be picked up he is to 
 all appearance dead. All his muscles are flaccid. 
 Fling him down, and he falls in a lifeless heap ; now
 
 COUSIN JACK 191 
 
 call the hounds off to a safe distance and wait : presently 
 there will be the slightest movement, an ear will cock 
 ever so little, and perhaps an eye be opened. If the 
 coast is clear, up springs the dead jackal and away 
 he goes. Is this catalepsy or shamming, paralysis or 
 cunning ? It is very difficult to say, but my own 
 opinion is that it is shamming brought to perfection, 
 and that in process of time it has become an advantage 
 to the race. The jackal is one of the weakest of the 
 beasts of prey in the jungle, and he has a hard 
 struggle for existence : his necessities and way of life 
 bring him often into the neighbourhood of larger, 
 stronger carnivora. The jackal is not particularly 
 good to eat, though there is a tribe in India that 
 catches and cooks him. I used to dread their 
 appearance, for the encampment of Brinjaris near a 
 covert almost invariably meant a long draw and 
 perhaps a blank day. At all events, if when attacked 
 by a stronger animal the jackal feigns death, he is 
 very likely to escape, especially as this generally 
 happens near a kill, and any beast of prey would 
 certainly prefer a chunk of antelope or ox to the 
 strong, ill-flavoured flesh of the jackal. Thus we can 
 see that to sham death might be a distinct advantage 
 to the jackal. Not only would he live, but he would 
 have the ultimate chance of coming in for his share
 
 1 92 THE FOX 
 
 of the food. I have formed rather a high opinion of 
 the jackal's intelligence after being pitted against him 
 on many occasions, and by no means always having 
 the best of the deal. 
 
 Jackals cannot have had much experience of being 
 hunted, except, perhaps, in the Peshawur Vale, or on 
 the Neilgherries, yet it takes them a very short time to 
 learn the advantage of shifting the burden of the chase 
 on to another of their tribe. Again, a jackal is well 
 aware of the advantage of clinging to a covert, and 
 as scent in India is often better inside a covert than 
 out, it is most difficult to bring hounds away on the 
 first jackal that breaks. As in the case of the fox, 
 the first to break is generally the boldest and best. 
 Another thing jackals learn is to leave the coverts 
 which are much hunted. I rather doubt if the jackal 
 is as much attached to his haunts as the fox, and the 
 best coverts are therefore uncertain draws. Yet, on 
 the other hand, sport in India, as in England, is 
 much benefited by careful work in covert, and when 
 I did find jackals in the coverts most often drawn, 
 they went away boldly and well as the season drew 
 on. 
 
 The jackal is in another respect like the fox : he 
 runs only over as much country as he knows. A 
 good wild jackal has a range of about five or six miles.
 
 COUSIN JACK 193 
 
 After he has been hunted that distance, he turns as a 
 rule, and if hounds have not changed, works back to 
 the place from which he started, beating up every 
 covert on the way. When we bring back a beaten 
 jackal to a covert, we may be sure that he will not 
 leave again, although it is by no means certain that 
 we shall kill him. 
 
 In creeping, crawling, twisting, turning before 
 hounds a tired jackal has no equal. Only at the last 
 moment will he take to the open again, and if we 
 view him and there is no riot in the covert, we shall 
 pick him up. It is probable, however, that jackals 
 change their haunts from time to time. When they 
 have hunted over a country it is certain that they 
 must frighten away the smaller animals. Jackals are 
 very like wolves in miniature, and their habits and 
 methods of hunting are very similar. The jackal is, 
 I think, a more difficult animal to kill with hounds 
 than the fox. He does not play the game as the fox 
 does. He is as cunning, as intelligent, as wild, but 
 he is far less sophisticated, and it used to please me 
 to think that perhaps in the chase of the jackal we 
 saw hunting as it was in an earlier phase than that at 
 which it has now arrived in England. 
 
 To begin with, we started early : for the more 
 distant meets four o'clock was not too soon. It was 
 

 
 194 THE 
 
 pitch dark and a syce with a lantern was waiting at 
 the kennels. A joyous cry is raised as the Master's 
 footstep is heard, 'Couple up Rattler and Lavish, 
 Random and Redwing.' They might break away in 
 the dark. We count them over. One or two lame 
 or delicate hounds are shut up in the bitch-house 
 and howl dolefully at intervals till our return. The 
 Master swings into the saddle and we feel our way 
 to the road and strike the path along the canal. Then 
 we know where we are, and, discarding the lanterns, 
 drop into a steady hound jog, trusting to the long 
 hours we have spent in the kennel and the attach- 
 ment to us of the riotous crew which without a name 
 among them landed from England a month ago. 
 Hard work, steady exercise, and occasional whipcord 
 have done wonders, but above all some of the most 
 troublesome have developed a liking for the Master, 
 and a word now and then keeps them near his hack. 
 Gradually it becomes lighter. We let the pack 
 stretch out and trot more at ease, but we have to 
 keep a sharp look-out, for there is always the chance 
 of dropping on a wandering jack. We have appointed 
 the third bridge as the meeting-place, and we should 
 not care to disappoint the small but keen band of 
 followers of the hounds. At the appointed spot we 
 find the field. Late comers have little law, for early
 
 COUSIN JACK 195 
 
 morning hours are precious. We want to find our 
 jack and drive him away when the dew is just 
 warmed, as it is then that scent is at its best. Earlier 
 the moisture is too cold, later the sun dries it up and 
 there is no scent at all. The best scent I ever knew 
 in India was when a light shower had fallen on a 
 sandy soil. Hounds fairly screamed for twenty 
 minutes and beat us all. 
 
 But there is the covert, and the field ride along 
 outside, the Master and hounds disappear. In a few 
 minutes the former is wet through. To ride into an 
 Indian covert on a dewy morning is to take a shower 
 bath. What does the jackal make of it all? He 
 is not acquainted with the moves of the game as 
 his relative the fox is. He has slunk home an hour 
 or two before with the air of a suspected pickpocket 
 that is peculiar to the jackal, and is in a light sleep. 
 Like his cousin Reynard he may have a village 
 hen-roost raided overnight to dream of. Does he 
 connect the strange noises with himself? But the 
 music of the pack, if not exactly his own dialect, is 
 a sound which he can interpret. The hounds are 
 clearly hunting something. At all events he slinks 
 out of the way, not hurrying, but someone views him 
 and holloas and the hounds are cheered on to him. 
 It is better to seek some other refuge, so he goes 
 
 O 2
 
 196 THE FOX 
 
 out, and, luckily for the huntsman, the hounds, urged 
 on lest they should change, come away on his line. 
 
 Then he rather helps his pursuers, for he runs in 
 the little raised pathways above the fields. They are 
 fairly firm ; the ground, lately irrigated, is sticky and 
 clogging, but the ' bunds ' carry a scent and we drive 
 our jack hard. He is hustled more and more, and 
 the easy canter becomes a stretching gallop. The 
 jack realises that the hounds mean business. When, 
 however, he finds matters are serious he turns back, 
 and now sure sign that he is growing tired he begins 
 to dodge and twice nearly gets away. Once the 
 hounds strike the fresh line of a wild cat in a patch 
 of sugarcane. Puss, however, solves the difficulty 
 by going into a tree and the pack once more come 
 back to the line. Once a little scentless graceful 
 Indian fox springs up in view, but the amateur 
 whipper-in gets to their heads smartly. Again a fresh 
 jack comes out of a sugarcane crop and the field 
 begin to holloa. Luckily the Master views the 
 hunted one, .and a touch on the horn brings out 
 Gambler, Senator, Victory, and one or two more, 
 while the others fly to the deep notes of the two 
 dog hounds (Victory, though useful, is almost mute). 
 Now the jack is hard pressed, and hounds, who 
 have driven him right through an old walled garden,
 
 COUSIN JACK 197 
 
 have a long start. Once back in the familiar covert, 
 he exhausts every dodge known to his kind. He 
 crawls in the ditches and slinks along until he is 
 actually running a few yards behind the pack. He 
 dodges to a small patch of standing corn, and when 
 the hounds are in the corn he is in the covert, when 
 the hounds are in the covert he is in the corn, and 
 so he plays a kind of game of hide-and-seek. At last 
 he runs a few yards out and lies down. Two or three 
 hounds run up to him, but touch him not. Old Victory 
 and Gambler fear nothing. Did they not once try 
 to tackle a wild boar with disastrous results ? Who- 
 whoop ! Not a bad morning, since for about forty 
 minutes out of the three hours we galloped hard over 
 a rough country. Hounds, say some people, will not 
 break up a jackal, but ours will with a little help. 
 The jack is killed. A hunting-knife makes an 
 incision or two, and he is thrown to the hounds and 
 they break him up fairly that old sleeping partner 
 of the chase, Rollicker, who has done not a bit of 
 work, eating the lion's share, while Victory, who put 
 us right and is one of the keenest hounds, sits by and 
 looks on. Nevertheless, even the keenest hound will 
 grow slack for want of encouragement and blood. 
 Hounds may not care to break up the fox or jackal, 
 but for all that they like to see him killed. Anyone
 
 198 THE FOX 
 
 who has hunted a pack knows how much easier it is 
 to handle a successful foxhound than an unsuccessful 
 one. But after all hounds are few in India, and 
 jackals are not often disturbed. Like foxes, they 
 soon find out where they are protected, and in the 
 public gardens they are numerous and bold. 
 
 Nearly every cantonment has its company ' bagh,' 
 part of which is used by the officers, civil and military, 
 and their wives as a meeting-place and playground ; 
 and here the jackals lurk in numbers. I have often 
 seen them slinking back to the gardens at Lahore. 
 But the neighbourhood of a town has a corrupting 
 effect on jackals. They become cunning, eaters of 
 offal, spiritless brutes, and are far less bold than those 
 of their brethren who live in the open and hunt 
 in the jungle. They are like the pigstye, back-yard 
 haunting foxes of some parts of our midland hunts, 
 animals as easy to find as they are hard to kill, and 
 impossible to make run. Nevertheless, in a well- 
 hunted country the jackal affords sport, and the reason 
 why it is often not so good as it might be, is that 
 few people are willing to give the time and trouble 
 necessary to keep hounds in India in sufficiently hard 
 condition to enable them to tackle a stout old dog 
 jackal. Like other animals that hunt by night the 
 jackal has a keen sense of smell, and when the pack
 
 COUSIN JACK 199 
 
 is in pursuit of its food the jackals hunt much 
 more by scent than wolves do. The latter animals, 
 in India, at all events, hunt often by day, and use 
 their eyes a good deal. Without exactly packing, the 
 Indian wolves often combine in pursuit of an antelope, 
 stringing out not unlike staghounds, and each one 
 taking up the lead as the turns of the chase favour 
 him. 
 
 Jackals, however, do sometimes forage by them- 
 selves, and though they work together chiefly at night, 
 they are seldom far away when any stray morsel is to 
 be picked up. 
 
 On the whole the jackal is a very sporting beast. 
 It is only want of practice and opportunity that prevents 
 him from being as good as the fox. But with the 
 exception of a few isolated hunts, such as the Bombay, 
 the Poonah, the Peshawur Vale, there are few packs 
 with any continuous history. Indian packs of fox- 
 hounds require to be recruited by continual drafts 
 from England, and to be managed and hunted in 
 India by a man who will give some time and thought. 
 Everything turns on kennel management, and this 
 must always be under the eye of the Master. Native 
 servants require to be carefully looked after. They 
 have of course no experience. On the other hand, 
 they are fearless with hounds, and manage them well.
 
 200 THE FOX 
 
 Foxhounds will stand a good deal of handling from 
 natives. One thing I think is necessary, and that 
 is that the Master should feed the hounds as often as 
 possible. 
 
 In my own case I took the greatest trouble in 
 feeding my hounds, and kept a sharp eye on the 
 cleanliness of the kennel. For Indian work I like 
 small light hounds, as they do not knock themselves 
 to pieces on the hard ground. I always had a mixed 
 pack, but prefer dogs to bitches. Short packs are the 
 rule, on account of the cost of imported hounds, 
 and I never had more than twelve to fourteen couple 
 and often less. But I took great pains to make them 
 handy. Indian hounds always require to be hunted in 
 a sharp and decisive manner. We had, as a rule, but 
 a short time of a serving scent, and it is necessary 
 to press hounds in order to make the most of it. I 
 started with the idea of letting the hounds hunt, but 
 I found that it was necessary to take every ad- 
 vantage to secure a run,. much less a kill, of so stout 
 and cunning an animal as the jackal. Two well- 
 trained terriers were most useful. In the thicker 
 coverts, and particularly in sugarcane, they could get 
 about in a way impossible to the heavier foxhounds, 
 and they kept at the jackal, yap-yapping at his heels 
 till, for the sake of peace, he was forced to go.
 
 COUSIN JACK 
 
 Sugarcane is very hard on hounds : the leaves cut 
 like knives. 
 
 The Indian M.F.H. should carry a powerful, 
 well-sharpened hunting-knife, as hounds cannot break 
 up the jackal without help. He will have many 
 difficulties and troubles, but also many delightful 
 moments ; and I for one shall always look back with 
 pleasure to the seasons when as whipper-in and as 
 huntsman I joined in the pursuit of ' Cousin Jack.'
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE FOX AND HIS FUR 
 
 THERE are few fur-bearing animals which are clothed 
 in a greater variety of fur than the fox. Hardly any 
 two skins are exactly alike. No creature has been 
 more familiar to me all my life than the fox. Yet 
 until I sat down to write this book I had had but 
 very few fox-skins in my hands. But for the purpose 
 of giving a true account of the fox his fur is not an 
 unimportant matter. When once we begin on any 
 such study of nature the interest and the material seem 
 alike inexhaustible. In the course of my inquiries 
 I discovered that the common fox and his various 
 relations were as important commercially as they are 
 to sport. 
 
 It is said that a board-school boy, being requested 
 to write an essay on the pig, asserted that 'this 
 animal has four legs and a curly tail, is interesting 
 when alive, and refreshing when dead.' So we find 
 that the fox is a most interesting animal in life and
 
 THE FOX AND HIS FUR 203 
 
 profitable after his death. The probability is that 
 many hunting men have never seen a fox's skin 
 except in the hundred tatters of brown to which 
 the hounds reduce it after a run. However, I en- 
 deavoured to find a typical skin of our common fox, 
 and I have examined and measured a good many 
 skins. The one I have selected is both fine and 
 typical. The length of the skin after preservation, 
 from the tip of the nose to the end of the tag, 
 is exactly 48 inches, of which the brush measures 
 1 8 inches. The length of the snout from between 
 the ears to the point of the nose is in its present 
 condition 5 inches, but must have been more 
 than this in the living animal. The ears are very 
 large, measuring 4^ inches from the root to the point. 
 The fur is in magnificent condition ; the prevailing 
 tint is a bright rufus yellow, light on the back and 
 graduating into a darker tint about the shade of a red 
 deer's coat below. The brush is much darker than 
 the rest of the fur, many long very dark brown hairs 
 being interspersed. Along the back-bone there is 
 a large number of hairs tipped with white, increasing 
 in prominence towards the root of the tail, until the 
 lower part of the back is almost grey. Underneath the 
 longer hairs is a brown woolly undercoat. The chest, 
 abdomen, and under side of the forearm and hind
 
 204 THE FOX 
 
 legs are a clear grey shading into white ; the pads 
 are black like the ears. There is a white tag to the 
 brush, but not a very large one. 
 
 Luckily the skin of the common fox, in spite 
 of its beauty, is not of much value, though the skin 
 of the fox in other countries is a considerable article 
 of commerce, and as many as 100,000 skins of the 
 various American foxes come to England every year. 
 From Germany about 500,000 are exported every 
 year, and nearly as many from Russia. Thus over 
 1,000,000 fox-skins find their way into the market. 
 Among these are included some of the rarest and 
 most expensive furs, that of the silver fox, whose pelt 
 of the black variety may be worth anything from 5o/. 
 upwards, according to the state of the fur market, 
 down to the ordinary red fox, worth at its best about 
 two shillings. 
 
 But after all our own little red fox is more 
 valuable than any of them, since if the others are 
 worth much when dead he costs far more to kill ; and 
 the English fox, as I shall show elsewhere, represents 
 an investment of capital and expenditure of income 
 beside which the Hudson Bay Company itself is but 
 a small matter. To put it in another way, a cloak 
 of our common fox-skins fairly killed in the hunting 
 field would represent a sum of money far exceeding
 
 THE FOX AND HIS FUR 205 
 
 the value of the Emperor of Russia's most magni- 
 ficent silver-fox rugs. 
 
 But all the foxes whose pelts are most costly 
 belong to the same family, and the silver fox of 
 Labrador, the choicest of his race, is of the same 
 species as our own fox. In fact, they are mostly 
 variations of the common fox, and of those noted 
 in this chapter only two can really be distinguished by 
 naturalists by well-defined and undoubted characters 
 as belonging to different species. Indeed, Mr. 
 Baird considers that all the American foxes except 
 the grey fox of Virginia, which is perhaps not a true 
 fox, are immigrants from the Old World, for no fossil 
 remains have been discovered in America. They 
 have, with the extraordinary adaptability of the race, 
 varied with the climate, food and surroundings to 
 which they are accustomed, and have adopted the 
 form most suitable to their environment. The fox is, 
 in truth, one support of the theory that species have 
 varied not so much by natural selection, still less by 
 sexual selection, as in correspondence to their en- 
 vironment, and that climate, food, and the conditions 
 of their life have made them what they are. Thus 
 Mr. Allen considers that the much-prized silver and 
 cross foxes are simply cases of melanism among the 
 American foxes to a greater or less extent; and,
 
 206 THE FOX 
 
 indeed, we know that there is in the so-called silver 
 fox every variety of colouring from a light grey up to 
 an almost jet black always, however, in the choice 
 specimens with a well-developed white tag to the 
 brush. Most of the American foxes are rather larger 
 than their European relatives. The most typical 
 black-fox skin is one with black hairs, most of 
 which are ringed with white. The pads are black, so 
 are the under parts of the body, and the brush is 
 large and bushy with a white tag. Very little is 
 known of these foxes, but some light was thrown on 
 them by a quotation from a Russian observer, which 
 was translated in the 'Field' (vol. 97, February i, 
 1902), where the writer records that on an estate in 
 West Gothland he has seen black foxes catching rats 
 in open day. The tracks of the foxes were frequently 
 followed, but in no case was a trace of fur or feather 
 found. We are not told, however, what game was 
 most common in the district. The writer found the 
 earths of two vixens, and four cubs were taken alive. 
 They refused birds, but fed readily on milk, rats, 
 and meat. These cubs were extraordinarily quarrel- 
 some, and by digging under the partitions of the 
 cage in which they were confined, they got at one 
 another and fought so fiercely that ' none of them 
 survived.'
 
 THE FOX AND HIS FUR 207 
 
 The black fox is very wary, and gives the trappers 
 more trouble than any other fur-bearing animal. 
 Its sensitive nose warns it of the least taint of man, 
 and it is said that it can snap the springs of the traps 
 and steal the bait without being caught. At other 
 times it will dig under the trap, but this device is 
 met by setting the traps upside down, so that the fox 
 is caught after all. 
 
 Next in value to the black fox is the cross fox, 
 which is, like the former, only a local variety of the 
 common fox. The skins of the cross fox vary 
 perhaps more in colour than those of any other 
 variety. Some are hardly to be distinguished, except 
 by experts, from the pelt of the black fox, while 
 others are like the red fox, only that the fur is 
 rather darker. The American red fox is larger and 
 lankier in form than its European cousin. The legs 
 and belly are black as in the Sardinian and Italian 
 variety, known as Melanogaster. The red fox has a 
 very fine fur. It varies greatly in size as well as 
 colour, from the little red fox of Virginia to the foxes 
 of Kadiak Island, which are almost as big as wolves. 
 The price of these skins ranges, according to vagaries 
 of fashion and the quality of the fur, from two 
 shillings up to thirty. The young red foxes are laid 
 up in earths like our own cubs, but are born some-
 
 208 THE FOX 
 
 what later in the year, the majority coming into the 
 world at the end of April or the beginning of May. 
 Like our foxes, they are great rat-hunters, but no 
 fish or flesh comes amiss to them. 
 
 There are now two foxes to be noted which are both 
 distinct species with well-defined differences. The first 
 of these is Cam's Lagopus, known as the white or 
 blue fox according to its habitat. This creature 
 is remarkable for its annual change of coat ; and in 
 the hall of the Natural History Museum at South 
 Kensington there is an admirably arranged group of 
 Arctic foxes in their summer and winter dress. Not 
 every Arctic fox becomes white in the winter. Any- 
 one can see the difference of the Arctic from the 
 common fox in the rounder head and blunter muzzle 
 which distinguish it. It is altogether a much milder- 
 looking and more innocent animal, and the Arctic 
 fox confirms by its habits the suggestion of its form 
 and face. These foxes are the only members of the 
 family Canida that migrate, and each winter they 
 move southward along the coastline. They are far 
 more sociable than the common fox, and live together 
 in little tribes of twenty or more, each family in- 
 habiting a separate burrow, earths being placed 
 close together. Unlike the common fox, which is 
 scarcely ever really tamed, the Arctic fox is gentle,
 
 THE FOX AND HIS FUR 209 
 
 It is cleanly in its habits, and has none of the offen- 
 sive odour common to the fox family. The Arctic 
 foxes feed largely on lemmings, and Captain Nares, 
 R.N., discovered that they had a provident custom 
 of laying up stores for the winter. Coming on a pair 
 of these foxes, Captain Nares says : ' We noticed 
 that many dead lemmings were scattered around. In 
 every case they had been killed in the same manner : 
 the sharp canine teeth of the foxes had penetrated 
 the brain. Then to our surprise we discovered 
 numerous deposits of dead lemmings. In one out-of- 
 the-way corner under a rock, we pulled out a heap of 
 over fifty dead lemmings. We disturbed numerous 
 "caches" of twenty and thirty, and the ground 
 was honeycombed with holes which each contained 
 several bodies of these little animals, a small quantity 
 of earth being placed over them. In one hole we 
 found the major part of a hare carefully hidden 
 away.' 
 
 Captain Nares noted that the vegetation round 
 these colonies of foxes was peculiarly rich. This 
 attracts the lemmings, and is, as the writer says, a 
 ' beautiful arrangement for the foxes.' 
 
 As winter comes on, the white hairs of the fox 
 grow longer, and in some cases, but not all, the 
 shorter hairs turn white, or perhaps are shed and 
 
 p
 
 2io THE FOX 
 
 white hairs take their place; but there are many 
 shades between pure white and the slaty blue of the 
 summer coat to be found in different individuals. 
 The blue-fox skin is much more valuable than 
 the white pelts, which, though thick, are somewhat 
 coarse. This fox lives in the Arctic circle and in 
 Europe is never found below 60 N. Like the other 
 foxes, this one feeds on anything it can pick up : 
 lemmings, water birds, especially eider ducks and 
 their eggs, young seals, and the carcases left by the 
 killers. Like our own red fox, the Arctic fox does 
 not object to its venison being high. 
 
 The next animal is quite a distinct species from 
 the common fox or the Arctic. Known as Cants 
 Virginianus to naturalists, as the grey fox in 
 Virginia, as the Tigrillo in Costa Rica, as Zozzo 
 by the Mexicans, and to the Indians as the Colishe, 
 this species claims notice here because it is a beast 
 of chase. 
 
 Canis Virginianus is more like a jackal than a fox. 
 It varies in size according to the locality it is found 
 in, but the markings are pretty much the same in 
 each individual. The grey fox of Virginia hunts its 
 prey by scent, and may perhaps represent a line from 
 which our pointers may have descended. The grey 
 fox when hunting for South American partridges
 
 THE FOX AND HIS FUR 
 
 quarters the ground like a pointer. When the scent 
 crosses his nostrils he crouches and ' points,' creeping 
 slowly on, flushes the covey and secures one with an 
 incredibly swift and cautious spring. Like our red 
 fox, the Virginian cousin will run up a tree when 
 pressed by the hounds. Some writers have asserted 
 that it climbs trees, but it seems more probable that 
 it can only ascend those trees which have a slope or 
 some irregularities on which it can fasten. In the 
 Southern States of America these foxes are often 
 hunted with hounds, and give good sport. Their 
 scent is said not to be so strong as that of the red 
 fox, but it suffices for the persevering, mellow-tongued, 
 low-scenting American hounds, who are wonderful 
 line-hunters. Probably the hounds are not quite so 
 fast as ours, but as they are seldom off the line 
 they perhaps get over the ground with nearly as 
 much speed. The grey fox helps them, too, by not 
 running right away but keeping always just ahead 
 of them. 
 
 The old Virginian foxhunters were famous 
 sportsmen; they took, and take, as great delight in 
 foxhunting as the squires, their English cousins. 
 The Virginian fox has a handsome skin, dark grey, 
 along the back shading into red. It has no white 
 tag ; each of the hairs of the back is banded
 
 212 THE FOX 
 
 with black and white, in alternate markings. This 
 gives a charming effect, and is moreover useful 
 by blending with the coverts where the animal 
 lives. 
 
 Thus we see that the fox has, so to speak, his 
 serious and commercial, as well as his pleasure-giving, 
 aspect, and that whenever he touches the life of man 
 he is interesting and important.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 
 
 THIS is a very large subject, but it will only be treated 
 of here so far as it relates to the nature of the fox. 
 We shall look at the fox, not, as we have hitherto 
 tried to do, as far as is possible from its own 
 point, but from ours. We shall endeavour to see what 
 light our study of the fox throws on what our fore- 
 fathers loved to call the science of foxhunting. 
 
 At this point we may consider briefly whether our 
 study of the fox throws any light on a question many 
 people ask in these days : Is foxhunting justifiable 
 to the conscience of a lover of animals ? 
 
 We need not stop to consider the case of those 
 who condemn a sport they do not understand, and 
 write of what they know nothing. Even if by acci- 
 dent they were in the right, they could not hope to 
 prevail by such methods. But there are people who 
 have thought the matter out, and, deciding that fox- 
 hunting is not to be justified to their consciences,
 
 214 THE FOX 
 
 have denied themselves henceforth the pleasure which 
 it gives. These persons, whether we agree with them 
 or not, we must respect. Nay, more, the advocates 
 of sport are bound to consider their arguments and 
 state, for their own satisfaction at least, why they do 
 not agree. The opponents of foxhunting put their 
 objections upon a syllogism. It is not right to in- 
 flict pain and death for our pleasure; foxhunting 
 inflicts pain and death for no other reason : therefore 
 foxhunting cannot be justified. To this it is a fair 
 reply, first, that pain and death are not the objects 
 of the sport ; and secondly, that we may without 
 scruple inflict both for sufficient reason. No one 
 doubts that foxes must be killed, and that if there 
 were no organised sport they would be killed just 
 the same. The race might even be exterminated, 
 though reasons will occur to the reader why this is 
 not quite so easy a matter as it appears to be on 
 paper. But at all events there is nothing wrong in 
 killing foxes. There is no real difference of opinion 
 about that. The only question is as to the method. 
 The key lies in the pleasure we find in the chase. 
 Of coruse those who take things as they find them 
 or who are like Tom Tulliver when he assured his 
 sister that worms did not feel when impaled upon 
 a hook, and was ' privately of opinion that it did not
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 215 
 
 much matter if they did,' are the happiest. But 
 in these days many people cannot take things with 
 such simplicity, and questions will obtrude them- 
 selves. Some people have qualms, and failing, as 
 it were, to make the best of either world, would go 
 on doing what their consciences condemn, or are at 
 all events uneasy about. It is better to face the 
 point and decide one way or the other. I have 
 already suggested that people who decide against 
 hunting are too anthropomorphic in their views of 
 the feelings of the hunted : they ascribe to mere 
 animal nature thoughts which are impossible to it, 
 and a memory of past pains and an anticipation of 
 future suffering which none but man is capable of. 
 
 I never could see that Macaulay's often-quoted 
 Puritan, when he objected to bear-baiting, not be- 
 cause it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave 
 pleasure to the spectators, deserved the sting im- 
 plied in the epigram. If bear-baiting was a cruel, 
 cowardly, and unsportsmanlike pastime, then the 
 pleasure of the spectators was by far the worst 
 feature of it, and was the vulnerable point of the 
 diversion. The bear had no chance, the spectators 
 ran no risk, the pain inflicted was the source of the 
 pleasure. But between bear-baiting and foxhunting 
 there is no parallel. Those who delight in the latter
 
 216 THE FOX 
 
 sport are not merely idle spectators ; they share in 
 the fatigue, and to a certain extent in the peril of the 
 fox. They are not passive spectators. The pain and 
 death of the fox is an accident of the sport : a 
 necessary one, for foxes must be killed, and it matters 
 very little to the fox how he meets his death. I 
 have given reasons for thinking that he does not 
 realise what hunting means, and if he does, then 
 to hunt and be hunted is a law of his nature. Nor 
 are we quite in the same position with regard to 
 the fox as the bear-baiters to the bear, for we take 
 from the fox what we have given and what we 
 have the right to give or withhold from the lower 
 animals, the permission to live. The fox receives 
 certain privileges in order that he may be hunted, and 
 though he cannot be a party to the arrangement, 
 it is clearly for his good. The joy of living is much 
 greater than the fear of death or pain in the lower 
 animals. Were it not so the world of nature would 
 be a scene of suffering which it would be terrible 
 to contemplate. We may therefore be sure we give 
 more than we take. But, after all, it is only the 
 method which is in question. Even so, this brings 
 nothing new into the history of the race of foxes : the 
 wolf, the leopard, and the dog have always hunted them. 
 There never has been a time in the history of
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 217 
 
 the race when the fox has not been hunted with less 
 paraphernalia than now, it is true, but with far more 
 bloodthirsty intent. Our pleasure is not in the 
 suffering but in the pursuit : in the musical cry of 
 the hounds, in the spring of the good horse, in the 
 sense of difficulty and danger faced and overcome, 
 in the skill, courage and resource which are tried 
 and tested. We do not, as in bear-baiting or similar 
 pastimes, make the suffering an end. No one ever 
 went out hunting for the sake of seeing the fox killed. 
 If a fox is killed and there is no run we regard it as 
 a misfortune. Yet I will not deny that the pursuit of 
 the fox has something to do with the pleasure, for few 
 people care for drag-hunting or a paper-chase as they 
 do for foxhunting. No one ever made these the 
 recreations of a lifetime as men of note in all profes- 
 sions have done with foxhunting. Lord Althorp, 
 the late Lord Granville, the great Duke of Wellington, 
 and a whole host of lesser notabilities have found in 
 foxhunting exactly what they needed. It heightens 
 the joys of youth, lightens the cares of manhood 
 and postpones the shadow of age. Everything has its 
 darker side, but there is nothing against nature in a 
 foxhunt the fox, the hounds, the men, all fulfilling a 
 law of their being. The fox is not always the hunted ; 
 he has his turn of being the hunter, which in this
 
 218 THE FOX 
 
 country is made possible to him by hunting ; and the 
 conclusion we must come to, unless we permit our- 
 selves an entirely imaginary and sentimental view of 
 the brief, rare suffering of the hunted fox, is that the 
 benefits of foxhunting even to the fox entirely out- 
 weigh any objection on the ground of humanity. To 
 put it in the way of an apologue, I am sure that if we 
 could call a parliament of foxes, and they could 
 understand the question, there would be an enormous 
 majority in favour of foxhunting. Each fox would 
 think that it would be others who would be killed. 
 He would know that he himself was alive, and intended, 
 if speed, intelligence, and endeavour availed, to 
 remain so. 
 
 It has been said that many Englishmen, and 
 perhaps the whole English nation, would be richer 
 if they did not indulge in sport. It may be so. 
 But the money and time spent in hunting bring so 
 great an addition to the happiness of life that the 
 sacrifice, if any, is worth while. Hunting, too, comes 
 well within the definition of true sport which I believe 
 to be the most defensible : that the hunter should 
 share in a greater or less degree the fatigue and 
 danger with the hunted. 
 
 But there is another point of view : how are we to 
 meet the wiles of the hunted fox ? The celebrated
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 219 
 
 Mr. Facey Romford used to say to himself when his 
 hounds came to a check, ' Now, Facey, me boooy, what 
 would you do if you were a fox ? ' and that is probably 
 not a bad principle for a huntsman to go upon. 
 There is enough of the animal in man to enable us 
 to divine something of the wiles of the fox. Neverthe- 
 less the hunted fox not seldom outwits us, and it is 
 only after he is lost and the run is over that we 
 see what we ought to have done. Some men have 
 an extraordinary gift of divining which way a fox has 
 gone, and what he has done or is likely to do. Mr. 
 Tom (or Gentleman) Smith was one most notable 
 instance of this. It was said of him that a fox was 
 less safe with Tom Smith after him with a stick than 
 if pursued by anyone else with a pack of hounds. 
 But the fox is, as we have seen, sometimes too clever 
 even for the cleverest huntsman. There is a well- 
 known instance of a pack which ran a fox to the 
 edge of a steep cliff. Apparently there was nothing but 
 a sheer drop, and the field turned away, confident 
 that the quarry must have shared the fate of some lead- 
 ing hounds who had fallen over in the eagerness of 
 pursuit, and been killed on the rocks below. But 
 again and again a fox followed the same tactics, until 
 they came to the conclusion that this fox must be the 
 same. A man was set to watch, crouched behind the
 
 220 THE FOX 
 
 only tree near. Presently he saw the fox coming. It 
 ran to the edge of the cliff and disappeared. Spring- 
 ing out, the watcher stopped the hounds. Then he 
 crawled to the edge of the cliff and looked over. 
 Great was his surprise when he found himself looking 
 into the eyes of the fox, which was holding on by its 
 paws to the face of the cliff, just under the edge. Its 
 mask was pointing upwards, so that it must have turned 
 as it scrambled over the brink. Directly it saw the 
 man it climbed quickly up and made good its escape. 
 It is evident that the chances of the chase are very 
 much in favour of the hunted fox. We have heard 
 the reproach against hunting that it is unfair for 
 many men and dogs to join in the pursuit of one 
 animal so small as the fox. In reality the advantage 
 is all on the other side. The hounds have only one 
 sense, that of smell, to guide them, and as we know 
 that is a very uncertain one, and apt to fail at critical 
 moments. On the fox's side are sight and hearing as 
 well as a keen sense of smell, a speed at least as great as 
 his pursuers', condition even more perfect, and, if he be 
 fairly treated, endurance far greater. Besides this, it 
 is a great mistake to look on the other pursuers as the 
 fox's enemies. In theory they are supposed to desire 
 his death, but in practice they more often save his 
 life. What are the holloas we hear but, in many
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 
 
 cases, so many extra chances for the fox ? Even 
 whippers-in, though officially among the fox's foes, 
 are often of the greatest assistance to him. A whipper- 
 in goes forward to view the fox and heads him. In 
 his excitement at viewing the fox he holloas too soon. 
 Back goes the creature into the covert. Presently he 
 tries again to break, but this time a whiff of a strange 
 odour reaches his nostrils : there is a man smoking : 
 back he goes once more. At the next attempt he gets 
 half across a field when he meets two or three boys, 
 who yell in his face. The fox by this time is becom- 
 ing certain that he is safer inside the covert than out, 
 and in this he is confirmed by being chased by a 
 sheep-dog the next time he tries to leave. After that he 
 determines to try creeping about inside, or crawling 
 in the ditch, slipping along the boundary fence. The 
 covert is now becoming more and more foiled, and it 
 is perhaps with a sense of victory on his side that he 
 hears the long-drawn note of the horn that might tell 
 him that the enemies are going somewhere else to look 
 for a fresh fox. A fox has many unsuspected allies and 
 helpers in the hunting field. People always feel that 
 it adds completeness to the chase if they have seen 
 the fox, but if we view one close at hand at the 
 beginning of a run, the chances are that we are 
 somewhere where we ought not to be. If people
 
 222 THE FOX 
 
 would stand still and remain silent far more foxes 
 would be killed than now fall victims to the hounds. 
 
 The fox has thus many advantages on his side, 
 and he may often be observed to make use of them 
 with great intelligence and resource. 
 
 Reynard, however, has two very dangerous 
 enemies. One is the huntsman who understands 
 the necessity of condition for foxhounds, and how to 
 give it to them by long, steady summer and autumn 
 work on the roads. This is the kind of official whose 
 labours are so hard out of the season that, as a famous 
 representative of the profession once remarked, ' I 
 look upon the season as a sort of holiday.' The bright- 
 ness and movement of the regular season was a relief 
 after the slow, long grind of the preparatory weeks. 
 Consequently, the foxes found that they could not run 
 his hounds out of scent nearly so often as those of 
 his predecessor. 
 
 The other is the man who does not get the 
 hounds' heads up on a bad scenting day. When 
 scent is bad, hounds cannot be left too much alone ; 
 even a heel line they will often work out for them- 
 selves, discover what they are doing, and coming 
 back, pick up the forward line again. Another 
 enemy the fox might well dread is the man who is 
 quick at bringing his hounds out of covert. The
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 223 
 
 quickest man in the long run, as Will Goodall years 
 ago found out, is he who goes to fetch his hounds, 
 not the one who stands and blows till they are driven 
 on to him. 
 
 One thing a fox must have is time : a terrier can 
 sometimes bowl him over when he first starts, a grey- 
 hound can hardly catch him when he is once in his 
 stride. I have been told of a habit of foxes that 
 have had experience of being hunted. This was 
 noticed by a late Master of Hounds and confirmed 
 by others when their attention was drawn to it. 
 The trick or method of escape was told to me thus : 
 ' If in a hilly country a fox goes away and when clear 
 of the hounds stops half-way up a hill and lies down, 
 and then waits till the hounds are as he thinks 
 near enough before he starts off, he will seldom 
 be caught. On the other hand, the fox that goes 
 right away and of course for the time being draws a 
 long distance ahead of the hounds, is far more likely 
 to be caught. The one economises his strength, 
 and later he is enabled to obtain the full advantage 
 of his superior condition, and thus to beat the hounds. 
 The pack when blown and tired cannot keep the 
 line, and thus it frequently happens that foxes do 
 not so much run hounds out of scent by placing a 
 long distance between themselves and the pack, as by
 
 224 THE FOX 
 
 wearing out the power of the hounds to keep on the 
 trail ; whereas the fox that goes away as hard and far 
 as he can at once, and thus exhausts his strength, is 
 easily caught up and disposed of.' 
 
 In the light of this observation and the remark 
 of ' Nimrod ' quoted elsewhere, 1 which another writer, 
 ' Cecil,' notes with approval, it seems that the aim of 
 the hunted fox is to gain time. The longer he can 
 delay the better are his chances, except, of course, in 
 the case already mentioned, when the fox having a 
 refuge makes for it as straight and as fast as he can. 
 Indeed it is an argument against the plan recom- 
 mended by Mr. Tom Smith, when Master of the 
 Hambledon, that earths should be broken up and 
 foxes forced to lie above ground, that if foxes had no 
 secure refuges they would not nearly so often run 
 straight as they do now. It is clear at all events from 
 what we have noted about the hunted fox, that as it is 
 his best chance to gain time and to delay his pursuers, 
 so it should be the huntsman's business to press him 
 as much as possible. It has often been said that a 
 fox is killed in the first ten minutes of the hunt 
 though the chase may last much longer. Mr. Jorrocks, 
 whose capabilities as a huntsman have been rather 
 overshadowed by his reputation as a wit, noted that 
 
 1 P. 33-
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 225 
 
 it was necessary that hounds should press upon their 
 fox at some period of the run. Thus, while the 
 huntsman's rnind is fixed upon shortening the length 
 of the chase, the fox's wiles are concentrated on pro- 
 longing it. Indeed it seems probable that in hunt- 
 ing runs of over forty minutes (perhaps we might say 
 half an hour) the foxes more often than not beat the 
 hounds. So that when the fox spends a great deal of 
 intelligence and some strength in gaining time he is 
 quite right, and this, and the desire to economise his 
 powers, are probably the two leading methods of the 
 hunted fox. By them we may interpret most of his 
 devices and actions in the course of a run. It is to 
 gain time that he runs the hedgerows, takes a turn 
 round a covert, or lies down in a ditch. 
 
 Cubs often escape just because they are timid and 
 distrustful of their capacity ; old foxes, because they 
 know exactly what their powers are. The majority 
 of the foxes we kill are probably young ones in the 
 spring of their vigour, who trust too much in their 
 strength and swiftness. 
 
 As an illustration of this we may note the fate 
 of a litter which were brought as cubs from a dis- 
 tant covert to a small one. They were ear-marked 
 there were five in all. In the cub-hunting season 
 they were dispersed : one was killed as a cub in the 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE FOX 
 
 covert, and the others moved to a chain of wood- 
 lands six or seven miles off. Two were killed by 
 hounds when they were obviously making for the 
 home covert one, indeed, was killed within a field 
 or two of the fence. One vixen laid up her cubs there 
 in the following spring, and for some years afterwards 
 the other fox took up his abode in a gorse near a 
 village, was often hunted and never caught, but met 
 his end at last. He was found drowned in a ditch 
 with a rabbit-trap on his leg. 
 
 The point I draw attention to is that the two that 
 were killed were the two that tried to run straight, 
 and they were both in their second year. The vixen, 
 and the old dog fox that was murdered at last, never 
 seriously ran at all : they dodged, crept, twisted, turned, 
 laid down in ditches, crawled down hedgerows, until 
 they beat hounds, or the Master lost patience and 
 ordered the pack off to draw for a better fox. 
 
 With regard to the fate of the fox that was 
 trapped, this is a new danger to hunting which has 
 arisen of late years, and it is a very serious one. 
 Trapping and foxhunting are incompatible. Farmers 
 who employ a professional rabbit-trapper are not 
 always at heart hostile to foxhunting, but they must 
 come to see that they cannot have both. I know 
 three countries at least which are in a very precarious
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 227 
 
 condition chiefly through this cause. Given a weak 
 landlord, an inefficient keeper, and indifferent 
 farmers, and foxes may soon disappear from a whole 
 estate, to the great detriment of a hunt. Since, after 
 all, prudent motives have very little to do with 
 human actions, it is not much use to suggest that if, 
 as Mr. Sargent states, about 100,000 horses are kept 
 for hunting alone, that would give a consumption of 
 1,200,000 Ibs. of oats per diem during the hunting 
 season. This would again be 8,400,000 in a week, and, 
 allowing thirty weeks as the time hunters are in con- 
 dition, would give a consumption of 252,000,000 Ibs. 
 (6,300,000 bushels) of oats. I have allowed 12 Ibs. 
 per day per horse, which seems to me to be rather 
 under than over the quantity consumed by a horse in 
 full work. 
 
 This is a digression, but in a book on the fox 
 and a chapter on foxhunting it is not irrelevant, see- 
 ing that rabbit-trapping in the cruel and systematic 
 way it is now carried on is incompatible with the 
 existence of the fox. If trapping were of more bene- 
 fit to farmers than hunting we should be sorry, but 
 we could not complain. But the market for oats and 
 hay is of much more importance than the market 
 for trapped rabbits. Whatever other view we may 
 take of foxes, they are a great agricultural interest to 
 
 Q2
 
 228 THE FOX 
 
 English farmers, and make no small item in the 
 market for forage, seeing that the hunter demands 
 the best of condition in order to follow the fox, and 
 thus requires the highest-priced food for which other- 
 wise racing-stables would be the only customers. 
 
 But to return to the fox before hounds. How 
 long will a fox stand before a pack of hounds on a 
 fair scenting day ? If the hounds are able to keep 
 up a sufficient pressure, and the fox is found to go 
 all the time at full stretch, about twenty minutes is 
 the limit of the staying power of most foxes. If the 
 time be longer the pace must be slower, and there 
 are sure to be some pauses. We talk of forty minutes 
 or even an hour without a check : what we mean is 
 that we have been galloping all the time. But the 
 fox knows, or seems to know, that he must check 
 hounds or die. If a run lasts more than from twenty 
 to thirty minutes, some of the following things must 
 have happened : The first, and by far the most likely, 
 is that there has been a change of foxes. Quite good 
 runs are often made up in this way, especially in 
 grass countries with many small coverts. We start 
 from a small covert and run to another, from which 
 hounds go on with a fresh fox, taking away a third 
 from the next covert, and all without any apparent 
 pause or check. Sometimes hounds pick up a new
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 229 
 
 line in the open, and this is not uncommon in grass 
 countries where there are many foxes. After hounds 
 have been running about for some time, the whole 
 country seems alive with foxes and changes are 
 frequent. 
 
 Huntsmen do not always acknowledge these 
 changes, but they are an important element in the 
 chase, and increase the fox's chance of escape very 
 greatly. ' That is not your hunted fox,' said a 
 sportsman to an old huntsman whose hounds had 
 killed a fox. ' Perhaps it may not be,' was the reply, 
 ' but if I handles him it's much the same.' It is 
 indeed a very high standard of skill that can make 
 reasonably sure of killing the fox that was found. But 
 the great aim of a huntsman is to show sport, with 
 an eager crowd behind him he must do what he can, 
 and that is often to cast forward and pick up another. 
 But supposing the fox finds no substitute, even if 
 there be no actual pressure there are relaxations. 
 Everyone who has been lucky enough to ride close 
 to the pack knows how often he is able to pull back 
 to a canter or a trot. The man behind, of course, 
 knows nothing of this ; he must keep on galloping, 
 but the fox and hounds have many a moment to take 
 breath of which the ordinary pursuer knows nothing. 
 Something of this kind happens : Let us suppose it
 
 230 THE FOX 
 
 is a scenting day. The pack has started fairly close 
 to the fox. He has to lay his ears back and run for his 
 life. The voices of the hounds warn him of danger. 
 But there comes a change of note. A space of bad 
 scenting-ground or a field of plough has checked the 
 many tongues. Though hounds are still making the 
 most of every whiff of scent and after the manner of 
 high-bred foxhounds driving forward, and getting on 
 at a fair pace, the fox can steady his speed and catch 
 his second wind. Sometimes, as we have seen, he 
 actually lies down to rest. When the hounds are on 
 better scenting soil, or perhaps have been lifted over 
 the bad ground a liberty the huntsman may take 
 freely when scent is good the fox starts off again as 
 fast as ever, but much refreshed. Then he meets a 
 flock of sheep or a herd of cattle ; again the chorus 
 wanes, and once more the quarry slackens speed. 
 In front of him is a small covert, but it is not his 
 point, there is no earth, and a thick covert is no place 
 for a heated fox, so he creeps round, just skirting the 
 outside. 
 
 Now this is another chance for him, and if hounds 
 flash over the line into the covert the fox may gain a 
 great deal of time and save his life. Hounds rush 
 about the covert, and when at last they pick up the line 
 again outside it is too late. Perhaps there is another
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 
 
 fox in the covert, and then our hunted friend escapes 
 for the day. But we will suppose that the fox is not 
 the only person with his wits about him. The hunts- 
 man looks forward and sees the plantation, ' Close 
 covert; fox won't stay, very likely to change; will 
 lift 'em round.' ' Put 'em on, Jack ! ' Toot ! toot ! 
 The fox, which has once more eased his pace as the 
 jangle of the pack stopped, now loses heart, for when 
 once more the clamour assails his ears it is much 
 closer than before. His point is a badger's earth 
 on the side of a hill, still three miles away. Quickly 
 he realises that his strength will not last him so far. 
 Hounds are very near : something must be done. 
 Before him is a fence with a gate ; he runs to the gate- 
 way, stops, turns short round and creeps under the 
 fence, on the same side as that on which he approached 
 it. This is most effectual. Hounds are in a tremen- 
 dous state of excitement, promising each other to 
 ' tear him and eat him ' in a very short time. Helter- 
 skelter they dash through the gate ; the clamour 
 ceases, but still they flash on right into the middle of 
 the field before they realise that they have no line. 
 The foxhound is no fool, but he has a slower mind 
 than a fox. The huntsman is puzzled and proceeds to 
 make an all round kind of cast in the next field, where 
 the fox has not been, and five or six minutes are
 
 232 THE FOX 
 
 wasted. By this time it has dawned on old Melody 
 that she never really smelt fox after the gateway, and 
 she goes back with perhaps a daughter or son who 
 always keeps her company in the front. The whipper- 
 in is half inclined to rate them on, but seeing which 
 hound it is, and knowing her to be a trusted favourite, 
 lets her alone. Shrill, high, eager, comes the note, 
 ' Down under the wall, you idiots ! here ! here ! here ! ' 
 To that well-known tongue they fly at once, and the 
 pack streams off, but soon has to hunt, for the fox 
 has gone into an open wood, and having taken a 
 wide sweep, he is once more on the way to his refuge 
 with a good start. Ten minutes or more have been 
 wasted (or gained, according to the point of view) in 
 working out the half-mile, so that he is now comfort- 
 ably in advance. He has rested a few moments, not 
 long enough to get stiff. He has once more caught 
 his wind ; true, his brush is clogged, and his pace has 
 lost something of its early elasticity, but he is still 
 able to plod on steadily. Just then a most delicious 
 odour reaches his nostrils : there is a heap of rotting 
 fish manure in the field. Though time is precious 
 he cannot resist a roll in it. He finds the odour 
 which causes his pursuers to blow their noses, draw 
 out their flasks, and light cigars, stimulating and 
 refreshing. Moreover it puzzles the hounds terribly.
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 233 
 
 I do not know whether the fox calculated on this, 
 but I doubt it. At all events it saves his life, and a 
 few minutes later hounds are baying round the earth. 
 ' Fifty minutes without a check,' says the timekeeper. 
 It was only forty, but thus is hunting history made. 
 
 There are, however, many longer runs on record, 
 without counting the wonderful hunts which the fell 
 foxes in Cumberland and Westmorland, or their 
 Welsh brethren, afford. In the best of our countries 
 over the cream of the grass, with the fastest packs and 
 the quickest huntsmen behind them, foxes have been 
 known to stand for hours. I think that long runs are 
 not really rarer than they were. They could never 
 have been ordinary occurrences. So many things 
 must coincide on a single hunting day in order to 
 produce one. First there must be a scent, not neces- 
 sarily a burning scent, but one that holds. Hounds 
 must be able to drive forward and to go on. Then 
 they must find the right fox in the course of the day's 
 draw, and they must force him away early enough to 
 enable the run to be finished in daylight ; for in most 
 cases the heroes of the great runs have been found 
 after midday, when foxes are fresher and lighter than 
 in the morning. The fox should be a dog fox 
 (though one or two historic runs have been after 
 little vixens), old or of rather mature age, and one
 
 234 THE FOX 
 
 that has come from a distance. Such a fox does not 
 know all the drains and earths and badger-haunts of 
 the neighbourhood, but is visiting, so he speeds away 
 for home as soon as he can disentangle himself. It 
 will be found in all the instances quoted below that 
 in every case but one the fox had come out of 
 another country. This is shown not only by the fact 
 of his going back there as quickly as possible, but by 
 the way he ignores coverts and other similar refuges 
 until he reaches his own ground. 
 
 I have looked over the records of a great many runs. 
 The odd thing is that, whatever period of hunting 
 history one examines, the great run is always introduced 
 with a comment that foxes do not now run as once they 
 did, and the remark that the Master's grandfather 
 enjoyed such gallops nearly every time he went out 
 hunting. I think the considerations noted above will 
 show that historic runs could never at any time have 
 been at all common, since at no period could all the 
 necessary conditions have come together very often. 
 My own view is that such runs, i.e., an hour or 
 more of practically continuous hunting, are just as 
 common (or as rare) as they ever were. I notice, 
 too, that these foxes were in several cases headed 
 more than once. There is no doubt that foxes in 
 crowded countries learn to disregard carriages, horses,
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 235 
 
 and foot-people, to go through or to circumvent the 
 crowd, and with a whisk of the brush to defy those 
 whom they know well not to be really dangerous at 
 all. In one respect it is possible that foxes are more 
 likely to give long runs now than, say, a century ago. 
 
 Foxhunting countries in general, and Leicester- 
 shire in particular, are far more closely fenced than 
 they were, and this is much in favour of the fox by 
 giving him time and delaying his pursuers. Given 
 an open country and a fox too suddenly awakened out 
 of his sleep, and a terrier can catch him. A fast collie 
 can certainly do so, and everyone knows how the 
 innumerable wandering curs of grass countries inter- 
 fere with sport. I remember seeing in Mr. Fernie's 
 country a running fight between a fox and a sheep- 
 dog. The dog rushed at the fox and rolled him 
 over, the fox bit the dog, which drew off, only, how- 
 ever, to renew the attack. This went on until the 
 hedge was reached, when the fox slipped through and 
 the dog was baffled. The fences help the foxes im- 
 mensely : I never realised how much until I watched 
 a pack of hounds scrambling through a West-country 
 fence in single file. If anything the chances are more in 
 favour of the fox than they were. 
 
 There is another point which shows incidentally 
 that long runs must generally take place with strange
 
 236 THE FOX 
 
 foxes, and that is that they deprive the best huntsman 
 of one of his advantages. The late Colonel Anstruther 
 Thomson, in his account of the Waterloo run, notes 
 that more than once he was deceived as to the fox's 
 point. The very fact that a huntsman is generally able 
 to guess at the run of his foxes is against him when it 
 is the unusual and unexpected that happens in the case 
 of the stranger. These considerations apply to most 
 of the runs noted below, and may serve to make us 
 more contented with our lot, convincing us that we 
 are not so much worse off than our forefathers in this 
 respect. The runs are : 
 
 The Waterloo Run (Pytchley), February 1866. 
 Time, 3 hours and 45 minutes. There were two foxes. 
 The fox was lost. 
 
 The Radbourne Run (Meynell), February 1868. 
 Time, 4 hours ; point 14 miles ; distance as hounds 
 ran variously estimated at from 32 to 36 miles. Two 
 foxes. The last fox was killed by a farmer as he was 
 crawling into an earth. 
 
 Great Wood Run (Badminton), February 1877. 
 Time, 3 hours 30 minutes ; point 14 miles ; distance 
 as hounds ran, 28 miles. One fox, which was lost. 
 
 Mr. Chaworth Muster's Run (South Notts), 1872. 
 Time, 3 hours 26 minutes ; point 18 miles ; distance 
 as hounds ran, 32 miles. Fox killed.
 
 HUNTING THE FOX 237 
 
 Barby Holt Run (Quorn), December 1894. Time, 
 2 hours 40 minutes; point 13 miles; distance as 
 hounds ran, 2 7 miles. One fox was killed. 
 
 In these selected runs, of which four can be read 
 in detail in ' Baily's Hunting Directory,' and the 
 account of the Meynell run in ' The Field/ there were, 
 according to the estimate of the several huntsmen, 
 seven foxes concerned, of which only two were killed. 
 The Meynell fox was struck on the head with a hunt- 
 ing crop by a farmer as he was in the act of crawling 
 into his earth. But, so far as I can see, if I had 
 chosen other historic runs the balance would have 
 been still more in favour of the fox. 
 
 It is said that the little daughter of an M.F.H. 
 when repeating her Sunday catechism was asked 
 which were the good gifts of Providence we could not 
 do without. To which she promptly replied, ' Foxes.' 
 Without going so far as this, we may say that hardly 
 any animal has, in the long history of its race, been of 
 more importance in the literature and life of man, 
 or is more interesting as a study of animal life and 
 mind. 
 
 This is the conviction with which I write these 
 closing words. If we could re-live the past, the fox- 
 hunter would certainly choose many of his best hunting 
 days for repetition. Indeed the man whose remark at
 
 238 THE FOX 
 
 the close of his life was, ' Well, if I had my time over 
 again, I would hunt a great deal more and flirt a great 
 deal less,' will probably, mutatis mutandis, find an 
 echo in the hearts of many of my readers, and his 
 words serve as a precept to the younger of them. 
 
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 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482
 
 3 1205 00205 3476 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000617957 6