The skilled trapper, setting a baited trap for vermin, places it at
such a distance from the bait that the creature he wishes to catch
cannot reach the food without treading on the pan. Just when it can
reach the prize is the moment when it is most likely to overstep the
safety-line: desire overcomes suspicion. A fox, if so minded, can reach
over the pan, and take the bait of a trap properly set for vermin,
without risking a pad. Yet he seldom takes a bait: he detects the scent
of man for a longer time than a trap is likely to remain unvisited. A
keeper with an experience of more than twelve years vouches for it that
though he used a hundred traps for vermin he never lost a bait through
a fox, nor the Hunt a fox through a bait. But one keeper surpassed the
cunning of the fox. A certain fox had troubled him greatly by too
frequent visits to his poultry-run. He decided to attempt to trap it
at the bottom of a chalk-pit near by, where the fox went to eat his
suppers. Before setting his trap he sacrificed some half-dozen chickens
on different days, with a two-fold object: in order to practise
throwing a chicken from the top of the chalk-pit so that it should fall
exactly where he desired, and in order to cause the fox to expect to
find a meal in the pit. One fine day he set his trap. Then he bided
his time until his scent should have passed away: and after four or
five days he killed another chicken. Making his way to the top of the
chalk-pit, he threw the chicken into a bush at the bottom, where the
fox could reach it only by treading on the pan of the trap, which it
did that night, at the cost of its life.
* * * * *