With September, cubbing begins--and the young of the thief of the
world must justify their existence by making sport. Many sudden and
bewildering shocks the cubs receive. Hitherto their lives have been
peaceful enough. No wolf has found them out in the cornfields where
they have been learning to hunt their own game; no wild dog has dug a
way into the nursery earth. To be hunted is quite a new experience.
The cubs are spared at least the dread of anticipation as in the early
hours of a September morning they settle to sleep in their soft warm
kennel, canopied by bracken and brambles. Dreaming, it may be, of their
own night's sport, the cheerful voice of the huntsman, as he urges on
his newly entered puppies to draw with their elders, means no more than
a general alarm to the cubs' drowsy ears. Again and again the hunt may
come, yet a cub may have no thought of a game, with life or death as
the stake. Not until the attentions of the hounds become pressing and
particular can he awake fully to what cub-hunting means. Then perhaps
it is too late. But an old fox is quick enough to hear the first sound
of the hunt; he breaks away at an unguarded corner, and is allowed to
go.
There is little chance for the cub when, fat from long ease, he is
pushed at last from the home-wood, with the pack in cry a few short
chains behind his apology for a brush. A fox-hound, if often cowardly,
is a foe of terribly unequal size and strength, one carefully fed,
thoroughly schooled to hunting, and trained to great staying power.
But a young hound is as indifferent to the business of hunting as is
a cub when disturbed for the first time in its life. Lackadaisical is
the word for the attitude of each. It is an unfortunate cub that slinks
aside to avoid a too-inquisitive puppy and walks into the jaws of an
old hound.
A cub is to be known from an old fox by its lankiness and legginess.
Full growth is not attained until late November; from Christmas-time
is the season when the amorous barking of the foxes of the year may
be heard, as they run through the woods in the night, seeking their
mates. In early autumn the cub's brush is lacking in bushiness, and is
obviously pointed at the tip. By Christmas--if Christmas is to come
for him--the brush will be in full-blown glory. A popular superstition
among countrymen is that a white tip to a fox's brush denotes a
dog-fox, while its absence is a sure sign of vixenhood. Another old
fallacy that dies hard is that a fox will fascinate a roosting pheasant
by gazing steadfastly into its eyes--hypnotising it so completely that
the bird drops at last into the waiting jaws. But a fox's tricks need
no bush. He will hoax rabbits by rolling as if in innocent frolic,
rolling his way nearer and nearer until, with a perfectly calculated
spring, he may make sure of his supper. And he will feign death so well
as to deceive a wary old huntsman. Many a fox's body has been dug out
of a hole and thrown aside as a carcass, only to come miraculously to
life, and to fly at the first chance.
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