have ample opportunity of seeing her. On her first appearance some of the rabbits
will probably scuttle away for some distance before sitting on their hind legs to
have another look; others will squat close to the ground. Judging by the Vixen’s
plans— the dog seldom does any foraging, except for himself—one would think
that she had never seen the rabbits. She will roll on her back, play with her
brush, trot in a circle, and regularly cheat the bunnies that she has no design
upon them. When they have become reassured and begun to feed again, she
is among them with a bound, and secures enough for herself and family.’
A Fox generally kills a rabbit by crushing it sharply at the back of the neck.
When about to feed upon it, he first bites off its head and then skins it, making use
of both teeth and feet in the process.
Foxes have often been found dwelling in the same warren as rabbits, and have
been bolted under these circumstances by a ferret; instances are given in the ‘ Field ’
(Nov. 13 and 20, 1886). Sometimes the Fox has resented such an insult and killed
the ferret.1 That the Fox has no fear of the family of Mustelids is also shown in
the case of one that was observed to stalk and kill a stoat.2 A Fox has also been
seen to chase and attack a cat.8
In the foregoing pages I have dealt principally with the English Fox, or Fox
of the lowlands. Away up north, in the mists of the deer forest and in the shaggy
woods below, there dwells another type of Fox, a strong and hardy fellow whose
life is more strenuous owing to the activity necessitated by the comparative scarcity
of food. No warrens of rabbits or fat ducks and poultry are his for the mere effort
of a short preamble, and, though mountain hares are sometimes plentiful and easily
caught, most of his captures are, at any rate in winter, the result of miles and miles
of trotting through the wastes of snow. Even these hill Foxes may be divided
into two classes: those which hunt the moor edges and live in the great woods,
and those which dwell far up amongst the rocks of the higher mountains, above
all else but the occasional badger, the ptarmigan, and in autumn the stag.
The first-named subsists largely by winding, stalking, and rushing in on the
blue hares and the grouse, with such other birds and beasts as the varying
seasons throw in his way. The true hill variety, the Fox of the ‘ tops,’ also
kills numbers of hares, but his chief food on the higher ranges is the ptarmigan,4
1 See Field, March 14 and April 4, 1885, also September 21, 1901.
2 Ibid. September 7, 1901. 3 Ibid. p. 893, 1902.
4 James McColl, stalker on the Glenkinglass beat, Black Mount, told me that his coUie one day ran after and caught,
after a very short chase, a hill Fox on the top of Clashven. The surprising inactivity of Reynard was due to his having
recently dined off three whole ptarmigan, the wing feathers of which he had also swallowed.
and he seldom descends, even at the breeding season, to the domains of the
wood Fox, preferring rather the snowy corries of his semi-arctic home far from
human habitations, even in times of storm when deer are forced to the glens
and are as tame as domestic cattle. In the spring this child of the mist will
wander great distances to neighbouring sheep-farms, and take his toll from the
lambs, or feed on the remains of those killed by ravens and eagles. The deer,
too, which die in numbers in March and April in overstocked and badly managed
forests, are a constant food supply at this season. These hill Foxes are exceedingly
shy and cunning, especially when approaching a dead carcase. I have seen the
paths of Foxes, beaten in the snow around a dead hind, that looked as if scores
of these little scavengers had been travelling round and round the kill, and yet
the carcase was not touched. The tracks were made probably by a single pair
of Foxes ‘ trying the wind ’ for several days ere they would approach. Foresters
have frequently told me that Foxes will not touch a dqad deer until three days
have elapsed, and that they circle round it for hours to see if man approaches,
a fact which somewhat contradicts Sir Edwin Landseer’s beautiful picture of
the Fox and dead stags, known as ‘ Morning.’ In spring the Vixen enlarges
some hole in a peat hag, in which she deposits her cubs, but often moves them
when they are a few weeks old t<? some large cairn, the deserted home of a badger
or high-dwelling rabbit. At this season the hill Vixen does most damage, and
is singularly expert in snapping hen grouse from their nests, to say nothing
of the number of birds she mouths and misses, and which never return to the
nests. As many as twenty brace of grouse, hares, rabbits, and two lambs have
been found at the den of a single hill Fox, and the stench of some of these
places, which I have examined, was overpowering. On several occasions, when
deer-stalking, I have come on the hill Fox taking his midday siesta, curled up
on some airy tussock of grass or heather on the sunny side of the hill. Once
in the Clashven beat of the forest of the Black Mount, I was descending a very
steep corrie to come in on a fine dark stag we had been manoeuvring with all
day, when within four hundred yards of our quarry we espied Reynard sitting
up on his haunches and regarding the monarch of the glen with equal interest.
Whilst making a detour to avoid disturbing the sharper-sighted animal, a golden
eagle came sailing along the hillside and pitched within a hundred yards of
the rocks on which we had suddenly thrown ourselves. On looking up I then
enjoyed the unusual spectacle of a stag, a Fox, and a golden eagle, three of
the most interesting Highland creatures, all within a short distance at the same