Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/835

 when he can get the run of them in spawning time, when they are on the sides of the shallows; field-mice, and his especial dainty a well-fed barn rat. There is no lack of these in the harvest time, and up to the commencement of the winter months. Then they troop back to their old quarters for the cold season. He has a taste for poultry; ducks he values most highly. Perhaps no one but a miller would expect to find a fox in a swamp; but he knows his tricks and likings, and, though he curses him most heartily, yet lets him go free, for is he not St. Reynard? The miller's landlord hunts him in the orthodox manner.



On the tussocks, covered with flag and rush spread all over the swamp, the fox makes a most comfortable retreat. Getting into the middle of one, he twists himself round and round, dog fashion, and there he lies on a nice bed, soft and dry, completely hidden from view, remaining there until the miller informs his landlord's keeper that a fox is there; then the huntsman comes round—and the sooner he does this the better, or there will not be a duck left on the pond.

Reynard can hear them nozzling and softly quacking at the edge of his hiding-place; with cat-like steps he creeps closer, looking through the flags. When he finds that he is near enough for a jump, there is a splash, and one low quack and the drake is in his mouth. In pictures you may see him represented with his quarry slung over his back. This is not correct; he carries what he has caught in front of him, like a retriever. More than once, when in search of wading birds, have I come on the retreats of the fox and the otter very near to each other. For cool impudence, match him if you can. I have known a dog fox, when the vixen had the care of a family, enter the yard of the keeper's house, take one of his game hens from under his living-room windows, march off with it across the road and to his home, give it to his family, and then come back for another. A pointer was in the yard at the time, chained to his kennel. Driven off at his