[Illustration]
Did you ever meet a fox face to face, surprising him quite as much as
yourself? If so, you were deeply impressed, no doubt, by his perfect
dignity and self-possession. Here is how the meeting generally comes
about.
It is a late winter afternoon. You are swinging rapidly over the
upland pastures, or loitering along the winding old road through the
woods. The color deepens in the west; the pines grow black against it;
the rich brown of the oak leaves seems to glow everywhere in the last
soft light; and the mystery that never sleeps long in the woods begins
to rustle again in the thickets. You are busy with your own thoughts,
seeing nothing, till a flash of yellow passes before your eyes, and a
fox stands in the path before you, one foot uplifted, the fluffy brush
swept aside in graceful curve, the bright eyes looking straight into
yours--nay, looking through them to read the intent which gives the
eyes their expression. That is always the way with a fox; he seems to
be looking at your thoughts.
Surprise, eagerness, a lively curiosity are all in your face on the
instant; but the beautiful creature before you only draws himself
together with quiet self-possession. He lifts his head slightly; a
superior look creeps into his eyes; he seems to be speaking. Listen--
"You are surprised?"--this with an almost imperceptible lift of his
eyebrows, which reminds you somehow that it is really none of your
affair. "O, I frequently use this road in attending to some matters
over in the West Parish. To be sure, we are socially incompatible; we
may even regard each other as enemies, unfortunately. I did take your
chickens last week; but yesterday your unmannerly dogs hunted me. At
least we may meet and pass as gentlemen. You are the older; allow me
to give you the path."
Dropping his head again, he turns to the left, English fashion, and
trots slowly past you. There is no hurry; not the shadow of suspicion
or uneasiness. His eyes are cast down; his brow wrinkled, as if in
deep thought; already he seems to have forgotten your existence. You
watch him curiously as he reenters the path behind you and disappears
over the hill. Somehow a queer feeling, half wonder, half rebuke,
steals over you, as if you had been outdone in courtesy, or had passed
a gentleman without sufficiently recognizing him.
Ah, but you didn't watch sharply enough! You didn't see, as he circled
past, that cunning side gleam of his yellow eyes, which understood
your attitude perfectly. Had you stirred, he would have vanished like
a flash. You didn't run to the top of the hill where he disappeared,
to see that burst of speed the instant he was out of your sight. You
didn't see the capers, the tail-chasing, the high jumps, the quick
turns and plays; and then the straight, nervous gallop, which told
more plainly than words his exultation that he had outwitted you and
shown his superiority.
Reynard, wherever you meet him, whether on the old road at twilight,
or on the runway before the hounds, impresses you as an animal of
dignity and calculation. He never seems surprised, much less
frightened; never loses his head; never does things hurriedly, or on
the spur of the moment, as a scatter-brained rabbit or meddling
squirrel might do. You meet him, perhaps as he leaves the warm rock on
the south slope of the old oak woods, where he has been curled up
asleep all the sunny afternoon. (It is easy to find him there in
winter.) Now he is off on his nightly hunt; he is trotting along,
head down, brows deep-wrinkled, planning it all out.
"Let me see," he is thinking, "last night I hunted the Draper woods.
To-night I'll cross the brook just this side the old bars, and take a
look into that pasture-corner among the junipers. There's a rabbit
which plays round there on moonlight nights; I'll have him presently.
Then I'll go down to the big South meadow after mice. I haven't been
there for a week; and last time I got six. If I don't find mice,
there's that chicken coop of old Jenkins. Only"--He stops, with his
foot up, and listens a minute--"only he locks the coop and leaves the
dog loose ever since I took the big rooster. Anyway I'll take a look
round there. Sometimes Deacon Jones's hens get to roosting in the next
orchard. If I can find them up an apple tree, I'll bring a couple down
with a good trick I know. On the way--Hi, there!"
In the midst of his planning he gives a grasshopper-jump aside, and
brings down both paws hard on a bit of green moss that quivered as he
passed. He spreads his paws apart carefully; thrusts his nose down
between them; drags a young wood-mouse from under the moss; eats him;
licks his chops twice, and goes on planning as if nothing had
happened.
"On the way back, I'll swing round by the Fales place, and take a
sniff under the wall by the old hickory, to see if those sleepy skunks
are still there for the winter. I'll have that whole family before
spring, if I'm hungry and can't find anything else. They come out on
sunny days; all you have to do is just hide behind the hickory and
watch."
So off he goes on his well-planned hunt; and if you follow his track
to-morrow in the snow, you will see how he has gone from one hunting
ground directly to the next. You will find the depression where he lay
in a clump of tall dead grass and watched a while for the rabbit;
reckon the number of mice he caught in the meadow; see his sly tracks
about the chicken coop, and in the orchard; and pause a moment at the
spot where he cast a knowing look behind the hickory by the wall,--all
just as he planned it on his way to the brook.
If, on the other hand, you stand by one of his runways while the dogs
are driving him, expecting, of course, to see him come tearing along
in a desperate hurry, frightened out of half his wits by the savage
uproar behind him, you can only rub your eyes in wonder when a fluffy
yellow ball comes drifting through the woods towards you, as if the
breeze were blowing it along. There he is, trotting down the runway in
the same leisurely, self-possessed way, wrapped in his own thoughts
apparently, the same deep wrinkles over his eyes. He played a trick or
two on a brook, down between the ponds, by jumping about on a lot of
stones from which the snow had melted, without wetting his feet (which
he dislikes), and without leaving a track anywhere. While the dogs are
puzzling that out, he has plenty of time to plan more devices on his
way to the big hill, with its brook, and old walls, and rail fences,
and dry places under the pines, and twenty other helps to an active
brain.
First he will run round the hill half a dozen times, crisscrossing his
trail. That of itself will drive the young dogs crazy. Then along the
top rail of a fence, and a long jump into the junipers, which hold no
scent, and another jump to the wall where there is no snow, and then--
"Oh, plenty of time, no hurry!" he says to himself, turning to listen
a moment. "That dog with the big voice must be old Roby. He thinks he
knows all about foxes, just because he broke his leg last year, trying
to walk a sheep-fence where I'd been. I'll give him another chance;
and oh, yes! I'll creep up the other side of the hill, and curl up on
a warm rock on the tiptop, and watch them all break their heads over
the crisscross, and have a good nap or two, and think of more
tricks."
So he trots past you, still planning; crosses the wall by a certain
stone that he has used ever since he was a cub fox; seems to float
across an old pasture, stopping only to run about a bit among some cow
tracks, to kill the scent; and so on towards his big hill. Before he
gets there he will have a skilful retreat planned, back to the ponds,
in case old Roby untangles his crisscross, or some young fool-hound
blunders too near the rock whereon he sits, watching the game.
If you meet him now, face to face, you will see no quiet assumption of
superiority; unless perchance he is a young fox, that has not learned
what it means to be met on a runway by a man with a gun when the dogs
are driving. With your first slightest movement there is a flash of
yellow fur, and he has vanished into the thickest bit of underbrush at
hand.--Don't run; you will not see him again here. He knows the old
roads and paths far better than you do, and can reach his big hill by
any one of a dozen routes where you would never dream of looking. But
if you want another glimpse of him, take the shortest cut to the hill.
He may take a nap, or sit and listen a while to the dogs, or run round
a swamp before he gets there. Sit on the wall in plain sight; make a
post of yourself; keep still, and keep your eyes open.
Once, in just such a place, I had a rare chance to watch him. It was
on the summit of a great bare hill. Down in the woods by a swamp, five
or six hounds were waking the winter echoes merrily on a fresh trail.
I was hoping for a sight of Reynard when he appeared from nowhere, on
a rock not fifty yards away. There he lay, his nose between his paws,
listening with quiet interest to the uproar below. Occasionally he
raised his head as some young dog scurried near, yelping maledictions
upon a perfect tangle of fox tracks, none of which went anywhere.
Suddenly he sat up straight, twisted his head sideways, as a dog does
when he sees the most interesting thing of his life, dropped his
tongue out a bit, and looked intently. I looked too, and there, just
below, was old Roby, the best foxhound in a dozen counties, creeping
like a cat along the top rail of a sheep-fence, now putting his nose
down to the wood, now throwing his head back for a great howl of
exultation.--It was all immensely entertaining; and nobody seemed to
be enjoying it more than the fox.
One of the most fascinating bits of animal study is to begin at the
very beginning of fox education, _i.e._, to find a fox den, and go
there some afternoon in early June, and hide at a distance, where you
can watch the entrance through your field-glass. Every afternoon the
young foxes come out to play in the sunshine like so many kittens.
Bright little bundles of yellow fur they seem, full of tricks and
whims, with pointed faces that change only from exclamation to
interrogation points, and back again. For hours at a stretch they roll
about, and chase tails, and pounce upon the quiet old mother with
fierce little barks. One climbs laboriously up the rock behind the
den, and sits on his tail, gravely surveying the great landscape with
a comical little air of importance, as if he owned it all. When called
to come down he is afraid, and makes a great to-do about it. Another
has been crouching for five minutes behind a tuft of grass, watching
like a cat at a rat-hole for some one to come by and be pounced upon.
Another is worrying something on the ground, a cricket perhaps, or a
doodle-bug; and the fourth never ceases to worry the patient old
mother, till she moves away and lies down by herself in the shadow of
a ground cedar.
As the afternoon wears away, and long shadows come creeping up the
hillside, the mother rises suddenly and goes back to the den; the
little ones stop their play, and gather about her. You strain your
ears for the slightest sound, but hear nothing; yet there she is,
plainly talking to them; and they are listening. She turns her head,
and the cubs scamper into the den's mouth. A moment she stands
listening, looking; while just within the dark entrance you get
glimpses of four pointed black noses, and a cluster of bright little
eyes, wide open for a last look. Then she trots away, planning her
hunt, till she disappears down by the brook. When she is gone, eyes
and noses draw back; only a dark silent hole in the bank is left. You
will not see them again--not unless you stay to watch by moonlight
till mother-fox comes back, with a fringe of field-mice hanging from
her lips, or a young turkey thrown across her shoulders.
One shrewd thing frequently noticed in the conduct of an old fox with
young is that she never troubles the poultry of the farms nearest her
den. She will forage for miles in every direction; will harass the
chickens of distant farms till scarcely a handful remains of those
that wander into the woods, or sleep in the open yards; yet she will
pass by and through nearer farms without turning aside to hunt, except
for mice and frogs; and, even when hungry, will note a flock of
chickens within sight of her den, and leave them undisturbed. She
seems to know perfectly that a few missing chickens will lead to a
search; that boys' eyes will speedily find her den, and boys' hands
dig eagerly for a litter of young foxes.
Last summer I found a den, beautifully hidden, within a few hundred
yards of an old farmhouse. The farmer assured me he had never missed a
chicken; he had no idea that there was a fox within miles of his large
flock. Three miles away was another farmer who frequently sat up
nights, and set his boys to watching afternoons, to shoot a fox that,
early and late, had taken nearly thirty young chickens. Driven to
exasperation at last, he borrowed a hound from a hunter; and the dog
ran the trail straight to the den I had discovered.
Curiously enough, the cubs, for whose peaceful bringing up the mother
so cunningly provides, do not imitate her caution. They begin their
hunting by lying in ambush about the nearest farm; the first stray
chicken they see is game. Once they begin to plunder in this way, and
feed full on their own hunting, parental authority is gone; the mother
deserts the den immediately, leading the cubs far away. But some of
them go back, contrary to all advice, and pay the penalty. She knows
now that sooner or later some cub will be caught stealing chickens in
broad daylight, and be chased by dogs. The foolish youngster takes to
earth, instead of trusting to his legs; so the long-concealed den is
discovered and dug open at last.
When an old fox, foraging for her young some night, discovers by her
keen nose that a flock of hens has been straying near the woods, she
goes next day and hides herself there, lying motionless for hours at a
stretch in a clump of dead grass or berry bushes, till the flock comes
near enough for a rush. Then she hurls herself among them, and in the
confusion seizes one by the neck, throws it by a quick twist across
her shoulders, and is gone before the stupid hens find out what it is
all about.
But when a fox finds an old hen or turkey straying about with a brood
of chicks, then the tactics are altogether different. Creeping up like
a cat, the fox watches an opportunity to seize a chick out of sight of
the mother bird. That done, he withdraws, silent as a shadow, his grip
on the chick's neck preventing any outcry. Hiding his game at a
distance, he creeps back to capture another in the same way; and so on
till he has enough, or till he is discovered, or some half-strangled
chick finds breath enough for a squawk. A hen or turkey knows the
danger by instinct, and hurries her brood into the open at the first
suspicion that a fox is watching.
A farmer, whom I know well, first told me how a fox manages to carry a
number of chicks at once. He heard a clamor from a hen-turkey and her
brood one day, and ran to a wood path in time to see a vixen make off
with a turkey chick scarcely larger than a robin. Several were
missing from the brood. He hunted about, and presently found five more
just killed. They were beautifully laid out, the bodies at a broad
angle, the necks crossing each other, like the corner of a corn-cob
house, in such a way that, by gripping the necks at the angle, all the
chicks could be carried at once, half hanging at either side of the
fox's mouth. Since then I have seen an old fox with what looked like a
dozen or more field-mice carried in this way; only, of course, the
tails were crossed corn-cob fashion instead of the necks.
The stealthiness with which a fox stalks his game is one of the most
remarkable things about him. Stupid chickens are not the only birds
captured. Once I read in the snow the story of his hunt after a
crow--wary game to be caught napping! The tracks showed that quite a
flock of crows had been walking about an old field, bordered by pine
and birch thickets. From the rock where he was sleeping away the
afternoon the fox saw or heard them, and crept down. How cautious he
was about it! Following the tracks, one could almost see him stealing
along from stone to bush, from bush to grass clump, so low that his
body pushed a deep trail in the snow, till he reached the cover of a
low pine on the very edge of the field. There he crouched with all
four feet close together under him. Then a crow came by within ten
feet of the ambush. The tracks showed that the bird was a bit
suspicious; he stopped often to look and listen. When his head was
turned aside for an instant the fox launched himself; just two jumps,
and he had him. Quick as he was, the wing marks showed that the crow
had started, and was pulled down out of the air. Reynard carried him
into the densest thicket of scrub pines he could find, and ate him
there, doubtless to avoid the attacks of the rest of the flock, which
followed him screaming vengeance.
A strong enmity exists between crows and foxes. Wherever a crow finds
a fox, he sets up a clatter that draws a flock about him in no time,
in great excitement. They chase the fox as long as he is in sight,
cawing vociferously, till he creeps into a thicket of scrub pines,
into which no crow will ever venture, and lies down till he tires out
their patience. In hunting, one may frequently trace the exact course
of a fox which the dogs are driving, by the crows clamoring over him.
Here in the snow was a record that may help explain one side of the
feud.
From the same white page one may read many other stories of Reynard's
ways and doings. Indeed I know of no more interesting winter walk than
an afternoon spent on his last night's trail through the soft snow.
There is always something new, either in the track or the woods
through which it leads; always a fresh hunting story; always a
disappointment or two, a long cold wait for a rabbit that didn't come,
or a miscalculation over the length of the snow tunnel where a
partridge burrowed for the night. Generally, if you follow far enough,
there is also a story of good hunting which leaves you wavering
between congratulation over a successful stalk after nights of hungry,
patient wandering, and pity for the little tragedy told so vividly by
converging trails, a few red drops in the snow, a bit of fur blown
about by the wind, or a feather clinging listlessly to the underbrush.
In such a tramp one learns much of fox-ways and other ways that can
never be learned elsewhere.
* * * * *
The fox whose life has been spent on the hillsides surrounding a New
England village seems to have profited by generations of experience.
He is much more cunning every way than the fox of the wilderness. If,
for instance, a fox has been stealing your chickens, your trap must be
very cunningly set if you are to catch him. It will not do to set it
near the chickens; no inducement will be great enough to bring him
within yards of it. It must be set well back in the woods, near one of
his regular hunting grounds. Before that, however, you must bait the
fox with choice bits scattered over a pile of dry leaves or chaff,
sometimes for a week, sometimes for a month, till he comes regularly.
Then smoke your trap, or scent it; handle it only with gloves; set it
in the chaff; scatter bait as usual; and you have one chance of
getting him, while he has still a dozen of getting away. In the
wilderness, on the other hand, he may be caught with half the
precaution. I know a little fellow, whose home is far back from the
settlements, who catches five or six foxes every winter by ordinary
wire snares set in the rabbit paths, where foxes love to hunt.
In the wilderness one often finds tracks in the snow, telling how a
fox tried to catch a partridge and only succeeded in frightening it
into a tree. After watching a while hungrily,--one can almost see him
licking his chops under the tree,--he trots off to other hunting
grounds. If he were an educated fox he would know better than that.
When an old New England fox in some of his nightly prowlings discovers
a flock of chickens roosting in the orchard, he generally gets one or
two. His plan is to come by moonlight, or else just at dusk, and,
running about under the tree, bark sharply to attract the chickens'
attention. If near the house, he does this by jumping, lest the dog or
the farmer hear his barking. Once they have begun to flutter and
cackle, as they always do when disturbed, he begins to circle the tree
slowly, still jumping and clacking his teeth. The chickens crane their
necks down to follow him. Faster and faster he goes, racing in small
circles, till some foolish fowl grows dizzy with twisting her head, or
loses her balance and tumbles down, only to be snapped up and carried
off across his shoulders in a twinkling.
But there is one way in which fox of the wilderness and fox of the
town are alike easily deceived. Both are very fond of mice, and
respond quickly to the squeak, which can be imitated perfectly by
drawing the breath in sharply between closed lips. The next thing,
after that is learned, is to find a spot in which to try the effect.
Two or three miles back from almost all New England towns are certain
old pastures and clearings, long since run wild, in which the young
foxes love to meet and play on moonlight nights, much as rabbits do,
though in a less harum-scarum way. When well fed, and therefore in no
hurry to hunt, the heart of a young fox turns naturally to such a
spot, and to fun and capers. The playground may easily be found by
following the tracks after the first snowfall. (The knowledge will not
profit you probably till next season; but it is worth finding and
remembering.) If one goes to the place on some still, bright night in
autumn, and hides on the edge of the open, he stands a good chance of
seeing two or three foxes playing there. Only he must himself be still
as the night; else, should twenty foxes come that way, he will never
see one.
It is always a pretty scene, the quiet opening in the woods flecked
with soft gray shadows in the moonlight, the dark sentinel evergreens
keeping silent watch about the place, the wild little creatures
playing about among the junipers, flitting through light and shadow,
jumping over each other and tumbling about in mimic warfare, all
unconscious of a spectator as the foxes that played there before the
white man came, and before the Indians. Such scenes do not crowd
themselves upon one. He must wait long, and love the woods, and be
often disappointed; but when they come at last, they are worth all the
love and the watching. And when the foxes are not there, there is
always something else that is beautiful.--
Now squeak like a mouse, in the midst of the play. Instantly the fox
nearest you stands, with one foot up, listening. Another squeak, and
he makes three or four swift bounds in your direction, only to stand
listening again; he hasn't quite located you. Careful now! don't
hurry; the longer you keep him waiting, the more certainly he is
deceived. Another squeak; some more swift jumps that bring him
within ten feet; and now he smells or sees you, sitting motionless on
your boulder in the shadow of the pines.
[Illustration]
He isn't surprised; at least he pretends he isn't; but looks you over
indifferently, as if he were used to finding people sitting on that
particular rock. Then he trots off with an air of having forgotten
something. With all his cunning he never suspects you of being the
mouse. That little creature he believes to be hiding under the rock;
and to-morrow night he will very likely take a look there, or respond
to your squeak in the same way.
It is only early in the season, generally before the snow blows, that
one can see them playing; and it is probably the young foxes that are
so eager for this kind of fun. Later in the season--either because the
cubs have lost their playfulness, or because they must hunt so
diligently for enough to eat that there is no time for play--they
seldom do more than take a gallop together, with a playful jump or
two, before going their separate ways. At all times, however, they
have a strong tendency to fun and mischief-making. More than once, in
winter, I have surprised a fox flying round after his own bushy tail
so rapidly that tail and fox together looked like a great yellow
pin-wheel on the snow.
When a fox meets a toad or frog, and is not hungry, he worries the
poor thing for an hour at a time; and when he finds a turtle he turns
the creature over with his paw, sitting down gravely to watch its
awkward struggle to get back onto its feet. At such times he has a
most humorous expression, brows wrinkled and tongue out, as if he were
enjoying himself hugely.
Later in the season he would be glad enough to make a meal of toad or
turtle. One day last March the sun shone out bright and warm; in the
afternoon the first frogs began to tune up, _cr-r-r-runk,
cr-r-runk-a-runk-runk_, like a flock of brant in the distance. I was
watching them at a marshy spot in the woods, where they had come out
of the mud by dozens into a bit of open water, when the bushes parted
cautiously and the sharp nose of a fox appeared. The hungry fellow had
heard them from the hill above, where he was asleep, and had come down
to see if he could catch a few. He was creeping out onto the ice when
he smelled me, and trotted back into the woods.
Once I saw him catch a frog. He crept down to where Chigwooltz, a fat
green bullfrog, was sunning himself by a lily pad, and very cautiously
stretched out one paw under water. Then with a quick fling he tossed
his game to land, and was after him like a flash before he could
scramble back.
On the seacoast Reynard depends largely on the tides for a living. An
old fisherman assures me that he has seen him catching crabs there in
a very novel way. Finding a quiet bit of water where the crabs are
swimming about, he trails his brush over the surface till one rises
and seizes it with his claw (a most natural thing for a crab to do),
whereupon the fox springs away, jerking the crab to land. Though a fox
ordinarily is careful as a cat about wetting his tail or feet, I shall
not be surprised to find some day for myself that the fisherman was
right. Reynard is very ingenious, and never lets his little prejudices
stand in the way when he is after a dinner.
His way of beguiling a duck is more remarkable than his fishing. Late
one afternoon, while following the shore of a pond, I noticed a
commotion among some tame ducks, and stopped to see what it was about.
They were swimming in circles, quacking and stretching their wings,
evidently in great excitement. A few minutes' watching convinced me
that something on the shore excited them. Their heads were straight up
from the water, looking fixedly at something that I could not see;
every circle brought them nearer the bank. I walked towards them, not
very cautiously, I am sorry to say; for the farmhouse where the ducks
belonged was in plain sight, and I was not expecting anything unusual.
As I glanced over the bank something slipped out of sight into the
tall grass. I followed the waving tops intently, and caught one sure
glimpse of a fox as he disappeared into the woods.
The thing puzzled me for years, though I suspected some foxy trick,
till a duck-hunter explained to me what Reynard was doing. He had seen
it tried successfully once on a flock of wild ducks.--
When a fox finds a flock of ducks feeding near shore, he trots down
and begins to play on the beach in plain sight, watching the birds the
while out of the "tail o' his ee," as a Scotchman would say. Ducks are
full of curiosity, especially about unusual colors and objects too
small to frighten them; so the playing animal speedily excites a
lively interest. They stop feeding, gather close together, spread,
circle, come together again, stretching their necks as straight as
strings to look and listen.
Then the fox really begins his performance. He jumps high to snap at
imaginary flies; he chases his bushy tail; he rolls over and over in
clouds of flying sand; he gallops up the shore, and back like a
whirlwind; he plays peekaboo with every bush. The foolish birds grow
excited; they swim in smaller circles, quacking nervously, drawing
nearer and nearer to get a better look at the strange performance.
They are long in coming, but curiosity always gets the better of them;
those in the rear crowd the front rank forward. All the while the show
goes on, the performer paying not the slightest attention apparently
to his excited audience; only he draws slowly back from the water's
edge, as if to give them room as they crowd nearer.
They are on shore at last; then, while they are lost in the most
astonishing caper of all, the fox dashes among them, throwing them
into the wildest confusion. His first snap never fails to throw a duck
back onto the sand with a broken neck; and he has generally time for a
second, often for a third, before the flock escapes into deep water.
Then he buries all his birds but one, throws that across his
shoulders, and trots off, wagging his head, to some quiet spot where
he can eat his dinner and take a good nap undisturbed.
When with all his cunning Reynard is caught napping, he makes use of
another good trick he knows. One winter morning some years ago, my
friend, the old fox-hunter, rose at daylight for a run with the dogs
over the new-fallen snow. Just before calling his hounds, he went to
his hen-house, some distance away, to throw the chickens some corn for
the day. As he reached the roost, his steps making no sound in the
snow, he noticed the trail of a fox crossing the yard and entering the
coop through a low opening sometimes used by the chickens. No trail
came out; it flashed upon him that the fox must be inside at that
moment.
Hardly had he reached this conclusion when a wild cackle arose that
left no doubt about it. On the instant he whirled an empty box against
the opening, at the same time pounding lustily to frighten the thief
from killing more chickens. Reynard was trapped sure enough. The
fox-hunter listened at the door, but save for an occasional surprised
_cut-aa-cut_, not a sound was heard within.
Very cautiously he opened the door and squeezed through. There lay a
fine pullet stone dead; just beyond lay the fox, dead too.
"Well, of all things," said the fox-hunter, open-mouthed, "if he
hasn't gone and climbed the roost after that pullet, and then tumbled
down and broken his own neck!"
Highly elated with this unusual beginning of his hunt, he picked up
the fox and the pullet and laid them down together on the box outside,
while he fed his chickens.
When he came out, a minute later, there was the box and a feather or
two, but no fox and no pullet. Deep tracks led out of the yard and up
over the hill in flying jumps. Then it dawned upon our hunter that
Reynard had played the possum-game on him, getting away with a whole
skin and a good dinner.
There was no need to look farther for a good fox track. Soon the music
of the hounds went ringing over the hill and down the hollow; but though
the dogs ran true, and the hunter watched the runways all day with
something more than his usual interest, he got no glimpse of the wily
old fox. Late at night the dogs came limping home, weary and footsore,
but with never a long yellow hair clinging to their chops to tell a
story.
The fox saved his pullet, of course. Finding himself pursued, he
buried it hastily, and came back the next night undoubtedly to get it.
Several times since then I have known of his playing possum in the
same way. The little fellow whom I mentioned as living near the
wilderness, and snaring foxes, once caught a black fox--a rare,
beautiful animal with a very valuable skin--in a trap which he had
baited for weeks in a wild pasture. It was the first black fox he had
ever seen, and, boylike, he took it only as a matter of mild wonder to
find the beautiful creature frozen stiff, apparently, on his pile of
chaff with one hind leg fast in the trap.
He carried the prize home, trap and all, over his shoulder. At his
whoop of exultation the whole family came out to admire and
congratulate. At last he took the trap from the fox's leg, and
stretched him out on the doorstep to gloat over the treasure and
stroke the glossy fur to his heart's content. His attention was taken
away for a moment; then he had a dazed vision of a flying black
animal that seemed to perch an instant on the log fence and vanish
among the spruces.
Poor Johnnie! There were tears in his eyes when he told me about it,
three years afterwards.
* * * * *
These are but the beginning of fox-ways. I have not spoken of his
occasional tree climbing; nor of his grasshopper hunting; nor of his
planning to catch three quails at once when he finds a whole covey
gathered into a dinner-plate circle, tails in, heads out, asleep on
the ground; nor of some perfectly astonishing things he does when hard
pressed by dogs. But these are enough to begin the study and still
leave plenty of things to find out for one's self. Reynard is rarely
seen, even in places where he abounds; we know almost nothing of his
private life; and there are undoubtedly many of his most interesting
ways yet to be discovered. He has somehow acquired a bad name,
especially among farmers; but, on the whole, there is scarcely a wild
thing in the woods that better repays one for the long hours spent in
catching a glimpse of him.