CHAPTER II
THE FELL FOX
“Who—whoop! they have him, they’re round him;
They worry and tear when he’s down;
’Twas a stout hill fox when they found him,
Now ’tis a hundred tatters of brown.”
In John Peel’s time the fell country fox was a distinct variety. Long in the leg, with a grizzle-grey jacket covering a wiry frame, the appellation “greyhound” fitted him exactly. As such he was then known, and the extraordinary long runs which he often provided fully upheld his reputation as a traveller. In habits, too, he was different from the present-day representatives of the vulpine race. Wild and shy, he avoided the haunts of men, and was seldom found lying up anywhere near human habitations. He and his kind were few in number, compared with the ample stock to-day, and in consequence each individual fox travelled a wider beat, and knew more country. It, therefore, naturally followed that hounds often ran fast and far when piloted by one of these old-fashioned “greyhound” customers.
By degrees, owing to the importation of foxes for restocking certain districts adjoining the fells, the true hill fox became infused with this new blood. The new-comers were a smaller and redder variety, and although to-day hounds often account for foxes with greyish jackets, the supply as a whole differs little in appearance from the foxes which are brought to hand in the shires. It may be safely said that the real old “greyhound” variety is a thing of the past, only to be seen to-day staring woodenly from a glass case in the fell-side farmhouses.
Long and lean, the fell fox proper was a much heavier animal than his relations who have usurped his place. Eighteen pounds was a common weight, and instances of twenty and twenty-three pounds have been recorded, but to-day there are more foxes under than over sixteen pounds. Now and then the fell packs kill an extra heavy fox, and I can vouch for the weights of at least three foxes which pulled down the scales to the eighteen-pound mark.