The fell fox loves rough ground, and uphill amongst the rocks he is a match for the swiftest hound. He can climb like a cat, and can squeeze his lean body through a very small opening. When hard pressed by hounds, instead of going to ground, he will sometimes attempt to evade them by taking refuge on some narrow ledge or “benk” on the crags. When this happens there is always the danger that hounds in the excitement of fresh-finding their fox may fall from the ledges on to the jagged rocks far below. Although Reynard is quite at home in such places, even he sometimes goes too far, and finds his retreat cut off, and an impassable route ahead of him. There he crouches until some too venturesome hound finds a way to him, and unless the hound catches and holds him on the ledge, one or other of them, if not both, will be lucky if they escape death by a fall.
I have seen a young hound fall with his fox from a height of two hundred feet, and I can assure you it is far from being a pleasant sight. This season, 1919, I watched a fox run by the Blencathra Hounds, take refuge on a blaeberry-covered ledge on a small crag. Hounds could wind him from the top, and at last one of them scrambled up from below and walked right on top of the fox. Reynard sprang up, the hound seized, but could not hold him, and I saw the fox fall backwards off the ledge as he wrenched himself free. Luckily the hound had sense not to follow. Reynard fell a matter of fifty feet, scrambled on to his legs again, and went off, though it was easy to see he was badly shaken by his fall. Not long after he went to ground, was ejected, and finally killed.
Hunting with the same pack on another occasion, I saw a fox climb the face of a steep crag overlooking Thirlmere Lake. Only one hound out of the four couples which were running him managed to make the ascent, the remainder going round and out to the top by a different route.
The fences on the fells consist of loose stone walls, and foxes often run the wall tops for long distances, both when hunted and when out on the prowl.
On bad ground the fox uses his brush to aid him when making a quick turn at speed, and also to correct his balance in descending a declivity. I once watched a big dog-fox descend a steep, frozen snow drift. He carried his brush straight up in the air, whilst he took short mincing steps on the slippery surface. At ordinary times he carries his caudal appendage straight out behind him, the tip inclined slightly towards the ground.
Both dog-fox and vixen may have a white tag to the brush, though I think there are more of the former than the latter with such white tips. A white-tagged brush is not at any rate, as I have heard it said, the invariable mark of a dog-fox.
Hill foxes vary a good deal in colour, from a light yellowish-red to dark red, with sometimes a good many grey hairs mixed with the rest. The “greyhound” fox often showed a lot of white about the fore legs, but modern foxes shade off from red to black. During the 1918 season the Coniston Hounds killed a fox with an abnormal amount of white about the front of its mask.
When driven off the fell, and hard pressed by hounds in the low ground, I have seen foxes take refuge in all sorts of places. Once on a roof, again on the window-ledge of a cottage, in a coal-house, and one desperately hunted fox sprang into a stream in roaring flood, to be carried under a bridge. Dry drains are often used as lying-up places, and they also afford refuge for hunted foxes, as do rabbit holes.
Reynard has no hesitation in taking to the water when need be, and I once saw a fox twice swim across the high end of a small lake, when it might just as easily have skirted the water, though doubtless the close proximity of hounds had something to do with the animal’s decision. A fox can climb like a cat, and when jumping an obstruction he hardly ever does so straight. A tame fox, kept in a roomy stable, invariably sprang up the side of the wall and threw himself into the manger, rather than jump straight into the latter, which he could easily do. A fox is also like a cat in the matter of the proverbial “nine lives.” I have often seen one after a terrific underground battle with the terriers, finally drawn out to all appearances dead, or practically so. Thrown on the ground the carcass has suddenly come to life, and made a bold bid for liberty.