Cunning Rascals
A fox, in emergency, will sham death to perfection. A Master of Hounds once noosed a fox in a whip as he bolted before a terrier from an earth. The fox appeared to have been strangled—when held up by the scruff of the neck his eyes were seen to be closed, his jaws gaped, and the body hung limply down from the hand. He was placed tenderly on the ground—only to dash off into covert. To be over-cunning is a common fault. One fox entered a fowl-house, and amused himself by killing every bird. In departing through the hole by which he had entered, he stuck fast, and was found hanging dead the next morning. Another sought refuge from hounds by jumping on to the low roof of a thatched cottage, and crawling beneath the rafters until he could crawl no farther. It was years before his skeleton was discovered. Some of the foxes found dead on railway lines, by the way, have been put there after death by vulpicides. In olden days the punishment for the crime of fox-killing was a spell in the stocks. Vulpicides remain, but the stocks—some would say alas!—have gone from use for ever.
