Apropos of shooting Foxes, it was amusing to listen to the hunting men in
Sussex during the seasons of 1899 and 1900, when alternately west and east
Sussex Foxes were plagued with mange. All agreed that every mangy Fox
must be shot on sight to stamp out the disease. Every host who had both
Foxes and pheasants carefully instructed his guns to shoot the diseased animals,
saying that he certainly intended to do so himself. However, when it came to
the point not a single person, much less the man who gave the order, would lift
a gun to Reynard, so the disease had to die out of its own accord. I was
amused one day, shooting with Captain W. near East Grinstead. He called out
to me to shoot a mangy Fox that was approaching my stand. Of course I
neglected the admonition, and he roundly abused me, saying that an opportunity
had been lost. In the next beat the same Fox came up within ten yards of
mine host, and they looked each other ‘ full in the eye ’— and nothing happened.
After the drive the gallant captain boldly denied having seen anything resembling
a Fox and assured me that I had been mistaken. He confessed afterwards,
however, that when he saw the Fox standing looking at him ‘ so miserably ’ he
had not the heart to take its life. There are several instances of Foxes having
been shot when running before the hounds, and such an one occurred in 1901
near West Grinstead, when a Brighton butcher, who rented an acre or two of
cover, slew the pursued one as it galloped past him in the wood.
Many instances of the daring of the Fox in picking up shot game, whilst
guns were going off all round, have occurred, and I once witnessed such an
incident at West Grinstead in November 1897, at a shoot belonging to Mr. Fred.
Godman. We had finished a large wood, the last pheasant coming over
Colonel Lyon, who hit it very hard. The bird sailed on about three hundred yards,
and as it was about to alight in a small strip that was to be the next beat, it
soared up slightly and fell dead in the cover. The place was marked, and beaters
told to pick up the fallen bird as they came along. Mr. Godman then placed
three guns at the end of the strip, of which I was one, and the drive had
hardly commenced, and several shots were actually being fired, when a vixen
Fox came out of the cover carrying in her mouth the identical hen pheasant
which we had seen fall. She stood a minute as Foxes always do, as if to take
in the situation, and then started off at full gallop, going past my neighbour, who
at that moment fired at a cock pheasant over his head. This was a little too
much for the nerves of ‘Volpone,’ who, apparently afflicted with a guilty conscience,
dropped her captive and made off at full speed. A Fox has been known
on different occasions to pick up a hare, a woodcock, a partridge, and a pheasant,
and carry it away from the midst of a party of shooters.1
Foxes are very playful animals, and even in a wild state they have been
known to play with a dog2; an instance.is related in the ‘ Field’ (May 3, 1902)
of a Fox and a leveret having been seen playing together at Brimpsfield,
Gloucestershire. Foxes fight fiercely, generally in the winter when striving for
the attentions of the Vixen. A fierce fight is described in the ‘ Field’ (Feb. 15,
1902), in which the combatants allowed themselves to be struck several times by
a man with a stick without letting go.
Foxes do not make interesting pets, not to speak of their disagreeable odour,
and never show any attachment to their masters beyond recognising the person who
feeds them and allowing him to handle them. It requires something more than
an ordinary love of wild animals to keep a tame Fox in one’s bedroom, as
a friend of mine near Fort George in Scotland used always to do. He said
that it would do all sorts of interesting things when they were alone together,
but personally I never saw anything but ‘ The eyes of Pauguk looking’ on him
‘ from the darkness.’
I have kept two Foxes, one for a couple of months and another for a short
time, and got less insight into their habits than those of any other animal in
captivity. Mr. Halting, however, says that when allowed the free use of a
walled garden they make interesting pets.8
Foxes are as subject to hydrophobia as dogs ; as shown by the biting of
Lord Doneraile and his coachman by a mad Fox. Both went immediately to the
Pasteur Institute, but only his lordship survived.
Interesting examples of the sagacity of the Fox are almost too numerous to
mention, but a few well-authenticated instances of its remarkable nerve and
intelligence may not be out of place, for it is its very absence of flurry and its cool
deliberation in the presence of danger that endear the Fox to most of us, and
1 See Field, January 9, 1904; and Sporting and Dramatic News, November 12, 1881, &c.
2 I have not entered into the question of hybrids’ between the dog and the Fox, because there is no perfectly
authenticated example in existence. Long ago Daniels (Field Sports, p. 167) states that ‘ it is a practice in many places in
the north of England, to tie up a bitch that is in season, where she may be visited by a Fox; the fruits of the connexion are
sufficiently obvious by most, if not all, the Whelps bearing a strong resemblance to the Fox in the sharp nose, prick ears,
long body, and short legs, and these Hybrids are much estimated for their handiness in driving cattle.’ Such general statements
are, however, of no real value. It is possible that hybrids of the two species have occurred, for there is a specimen
in the Worcester Museum which both Mr. De Winton and Mr. Pocock, who have examined it, believe to be a genuine
hybrid between a dog and a Fox. Sporting papers are full of so-called hybrids, but actual scientific evidence is scarce.
1 Zoologist, 1891, p. 321.