mouse-hole to render himself invisible. He crouches to the ground and
remains perfectly motionless until he perceives himself discovered, when
he makes one desperate and final effort to escape, but ceases all
struggling as you come up, and behaves in a manner that stamps him a
very timid warrior,--cowering to the earth with a mingled look of shame,
guilt, and humiliation. A young farmer told me of tracing one with his
trap to the border of a wood, where he discovered the cunning rogue
trying to hide by embracing a small tree. Most animals, when taken in a
trap, show fight; but Reynard has more faith in the nimbleness of his
feet than in the terror of his teeth.

I once spent a summer month in a mountainous district in the State of
New York, where, from its earliest settlement, the red fox has been the
standing prize for skill in the use of the trap and gun. At the house
where I was stopping were two foxhounds, and a neighbor half a mile
distant had a third. There were many others in the township, and in
season they were well employed, too; but the three spoken of, attended
by their owners, held high carnival on the mountains in the immediate
vicinity. And many were the foxes that, winter after winter, fell before
them, twenty-five having been shot, the season before my visit, on one
small range alone. And yet the foxes were apparently never more abundant
than they were that summer, and never bolder, coming at night within a
few rods of the house and of the unchained alert hounds, and making
havoc among the poultry.

One morning a large, fat goose was found minus her head and otherwise
mangled. Both hounds had disappeared, and, as they did not come back
till near night, it was inferred that they had cut short Reynard's
repast, and given him a good chase into the bargain. But next night he
was back again, and this time got safely off with the goose. A couple of
nights after he must have come with recruits, for next morning three
large goslings were reported missing. The silly geese now got it
through their noddles that there was danger about, and every night
thereafter came close up to the house to roost.

A brood of turkeys, the old one tied to a tree a few rods to the rear of
the house, were the next objects of attack. The predaceous rascal came,
as usual, in the latter half of the night. I happened to be awake, and
heard the helpless turkey cry "Quit, quit," with great emphasis. Another
sleeper, on the floor above