Ways of Wood Folk | Page 5

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