The results of my experiences confirmed my previous observation that foxes are not afraid of the odor of iron, neither of the odor of man, but mighty suspicious of a bait connected with both odors. I made a trail about two miles long, scattered about it pieces of meat, chicken, rabbit, cheese, etc. I dragged a dead chicken, but I set no trap. Prior to my baiting the trail foxes were crossing it and following it without hesitation, but after I had put out the bait not a fox had ventured to cross that trail again.
One day I saw where a fox had come near the trail, stopped, wheeled about and bounded off like a frightened deer. Another day, a fox tried to cross it at three different places but could not summon up enough courage, and at last, by making a long detour he crossed it at a place where there was no bait, not 20 yards from my cabin. One time a fox walked parallel to the trail several rods, then came nearer to it, stopped and turned back at full speed. The same foxes which were so afraid of my trail were going every night on the public road to eat horses.
A GOOD RUNNER.
I will now relate one instance showing that the foxes smell traps. One day I chopped a chicken on a log. I threw the big pieces in the middle of three traps I had set the week before and left many small pieces on the log. The day after the snow around and on the log was all tramped down by foxes. One fox walked towards the big piece of meat, and when about two inches from a trap he stopped and turned back. I have no doubt he smelled the trap. When the traps are in the snow or wet ground the oxidation of iron produces a peculiar odor noticeable even to the human nostrils.
One day I was going to look at a trap in a swamp road. My dog was trotting ahead of me, and when about ten feet from the trap he stopped and turned around. He detected the odor of the trap for he had not seen me set it, and he had good reasons to avoid it because when young he had often been pinched.
Perhaps my experience does not harmonize with that of other trappers, but the ways of foxes as well as other animals are much influenced by their surroundings. I have observed that foxes frequenting the neighborhood of farms are less suspicious than those living in the deep woods.
For years, says a Southern trapper, I have invariably caught my fox, whether in a path, water or bait set; but can I swear my success is attributable to my extreme precaution? I always smoke traps to kill the smell of iron then handle them and everything around the setting with gloves, to erase human scent.