With reference to the Fox's mode of entering the earth Mr. T. A. Coward
sends me the following note:
‘ In 1887 a keeper at Plumbley, Cheshire, showed me a Fox-earth, and pointed
out that the Fox when entering the burrow walks with one foot on each side, thus
leaving a ridge down the centre of the burrow. There certainly was a ridge of sand,
but I will not be sure that this is the regular habit. The same man showed me
a huge earth which he had dug out; while digging he fell through, and declared
that his head was level with the surrounding ground when he fell in.’
The food of the Fox is very varied. In fact it will eat almost anything in
the way of flesh, fish, crabs and molluscs, whether fresh or putrid. On the low
grounds of Britain the chief food of the Fox is the rabbit, and if these are
in abundance it may be taken as a general rule that it does little destruction
to other game, except occasionally picking up a sitting hen pheasant or young
pheasant sleeping in the grass. It is quite possible to have both Foxes and
pheasants, provided there is a good supply of rabbits and rats on an estate.
This is a sine qua non, as the following incident will show. I enjoyed an
excellent day’s pheasant-shooting (second time over) with Mr. Bevil Stanier at
Peplow in Shropshire, in December 1901. We killed about three hundred
pheasants, and left about an equal number of wild birds, five hundred having
been killed in the first shoot over the home coverts. There was also a good
sprinkling of rabbits. The following year Foxes were scarce in the neighbourhood,
so Mr. Stanier, with praiseworthy sportsmanship, turned down seven vixen
Foxes. Five of these had litters. The rabbits having been nearly exterminated
owing to complaints on the part of the farmers, the Foxes were forced to live
entirely on the young pheasants, which suffered to an unusual extent. With other
guns, Mr. Stanier kindly asked me to the first shoot in November 1902. With
difficulty we got thirty-five pheasants, nearly the whole of the stock having been
killed by the Foxes in September, when the young birds were sleeping out in the
grass, a foolish habit of young pheasants in dry seasons before they begin to fly
up to roost. One man thoroughly enjoyed his day’s shooting, and that was
Mr. Bibby, the Master of the Shropshire Hounds.
That the Fox is a most wasteful slaughterer, and will occasionally prefer
killing pheasants to rabbits, I know from experience. As in every case of what
may be called unusual criminality, however, these instances can be explained by
the somewhat abnormal tastes of isolated individuals. A Fox broke into Denne
Park pheasantry, which is situated in a great rabbit district, and in one night