young,
except it be, as some hunters maintain, for better security. The young
foxes are wont to come out on a warm day, and play like puppies in front
of the den. The view being unobstructed on all sides by trees or bushes,
in the cover of which danger might approach, they are less liable to
surprise and capture. On the slightest sound they disappear in the hole.
Those who have watched the gambols of the young foxes speak of them as
very amusing, even more arch and playful than those of kittens, while a
spirit profoundly wise and cunning seems to look out of their young
eyes. The parent fox can never be caught in the den with them, but is
hovering near the woods, which are always at hand, and by her warning
cry or bark telling them when to be on their guard. She usually has at
least three dens, at no great distance apart, and moves stealthily in
the night with her charge from one to the other, so as to mislead her
enemies. Many a party of boys, and of men, too, discovering the
whereabouts of a litter, have gone with shovels and picks, and, after
digging away vigorously for several hours, have found only an empty hole
for their pains. The old fox, finding her secret had been found out,
had waited for darkness, in the cover of which to transfer her household
to new quarters; or else some old fox-hunter, jealous of the
preservation of his game, and getting word of the intended destruction
of the litter, had gone at dusk the night before, and made some
disturbance about the den, perhaps flashed some powder in its mouth,--a
hint which the shrewd animal knew how to interpret.

The fox nearly always takes his nap during the day in the open fields,
along the sides of the ridges, or under the mountain, where he can look
down upon the busy farms beneath and hear their many sounds, the barking
of dogs, the lowing of cattle, the cackling of hens, the voices of men
and boys, or the sound of travel upon the highway. It is on that side,
too, that he keeps the sharpest lookout, and the appearance of the
hunter above and behind him is always a surprise.

Foxes, unlike wolves, never go in packs or companies, but hunt singly.
Many of the ways and manners of the fox, when tamed, are like the dog's.
I once saw a young red fox exposed for sale in the market in Washington.
A colored man had him, and said he had caught him out in Virginia. He
led him by a small chain, as he would a puppy, and the innocent young
rascal would lie on his side an