view raw text
ARTIFICES OF THE HUNTED FOX A correspondent of a daily paper told a story the other day of a beaten fox which crawled into a drain leaving another fox to carry on before hounds A countryman who watched the maneuver informed the writer of the letter that it was the third time the same fox as he asserted had practiced the same trick and the assumption was that the second fox was deliberately risking hini self in order to save his exhausted friend Many true stories of animal courage and artifice are Wellnigh incredible but this one really passes the hounds and cannot be accepted as true trueThe The writer of the admirable Country Xotes in the Daily Mall comments on this fable He ad ¬ mits that a fresh fox jumping up at a critical time and dividing the nack or drawing it altogether from a fox that is failing is a common incident of the chase ami doubtless the newcomer often saves his own brush as well as that of his comrade if hounds have an exacting hunt Whether the act is premeditated or not is quite a different matter When a hunted fox throws hounds off the scent by rolling on a manure heap or running through a flock of sheep there seems definite premeditation But despite Reynards innumerable tricks it is hard tf l elieye that a fox would deliberately put himself in the way of hounds to save a deadbeat comrade Badinintoii Magazine
