A fox does not grow very old without learning how to take advantage of
a snarer's catch. He learns to follow up runs and visit places where
the snarer has set his snares. And he often pays the penalty, his
feet falling foul of the noose. Hunting people commonly suppose that
traps--steel gins--are the chief cause of fox-maiming, yet not once in
a blue moon is a fox trapped. But if too clever to be caught in a trap,
he is not clever enough to keep his feet out of the brass wire of the
simple snare. We came across a curious instance showing how a fox may
suffer from a snare. Hounds found a fox which ran to ground almost at
once. Men were set to work to dig him out, and they found he was merely
skin and bone, and round his muzzle they found part of a brass snare.
The wire had fixed itself in such a way that he could scarcely open his
mouth, so that he was handicapped both in catching food and eating it.
From his appearance it was thought that he had been in this miserable
plight for a month. It had been better for the fox if hounds had found
him a month earlier.
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