Muzzled by a Snare
A fox does not grow very old without learning how to take advantage of a snarer's catch. He learns to follow up runs and visit places where the snarer has set his snares. And he often pays the penalty, his feet falling foul of the noose. Hunting people commonly suppose that traps—steel gins—are the chief cause of fox-maiming, yet not once in a blue moon is a fox trapped. But if too clever to be caught in a trap, he is not clever enough to keep his feet out of the brass wire of the simple snare. We came across a curious instance showing how a fox may suffer from a snare. Hounds found a fox which ran to ground almost at once. Men were set to work to dig him out, and they found he was merely skin and bone, and round his muzzle they found part of a brass snare. The wire had fixed itself in such a way that he could scarcely open his mouth, so that he was handicapped both in catching food and eating it. From his appearance it was thought that he had been in this miserable plight for a month. It had been better for the fox if hounds had found him a month earlier.
