CHAPTER XVIII.
FOX SHOOTING.
The fox, although the cleverest animal sought after by New England hunters and trappers, says L. W. Beardsley, of Connecticut, seems to have one decided drawback, that of sight, which frequently costs him his life. Sly and clever with very acute nose and ear, he appears to be unable to tell a man from a tree or stone by sight alone, provided the person remains motionless, but the slightest motion is detected and sends him dusting for cover. The above I have proved to my entire satisfaction time and again when hunting this animal, a few instances of which I will quote below.
While walking along the tracks of the Berkshire Division R. R., which were bounded on the west by a steep hill with a fence three boards high, placed horizontally about eight inches apart skirting the track, I noticed beneath the lower board the legs of a fox moving toward me some seventy-five yards away. I stopped between the rails, half raising my 38-40 Stevens, telescope mounted, and waited for a favorable shot. When some thirty yards away the fox crawled under the fence and trotted down the bank immediately in front of me, where I stood in plain view. He stopped in the middle of the track and looked towards me unconcernedly for several seconds, then swung his head down the tracks in the direction of a train which was rapidly approaching from the south. This was my chance. I brought the cross hairs to bear just back of his foreleg and pulled. With one mighty bound in the air he fell back across the rails without a struggle, and I had to do some hustling to pull him out of the way before the train was upon us.
KILLED BEFORE BREAKFAST.
Again I was sitting on a stone, my back against a wall in an open pasture lot waiting in hopes a fox might use the runway which passed close by. I had been waiting quietly since 4 A. M. It was now 6:30, and I had nearly given up hopes of seeing a fox that morning and was getting perhaps rather careless about watching, when something rustled in the grass, and raising my eyes without moving my head, I saw a red fox in the act of passing in front of me not more than ten or fifteen feet away in the open lot.
I remained motionless until he was well past, then raising my gun slowly and carefully I fired at the back of his head as he was trotting leisurely away, all unconscious of my presence, and perhaps only saw twenty-five yards off. The fox never knew what had killed him, and I often wonder if that load of shot surprised him more than his sudden appearance surprised me, as I sat dozing on the rock. I used on this occasion a 10 ga. full choke Winchester, level action repeater Model 1901, loaded with 4 1/2 drs. black powder and 1 1/4 oz. B. shot.