FOXES form a very well-marked group. they have very pointed muzzles, strong though slightly built bodies, very fine thick fur, often beautifully colored and very valuable, bushy tails, pricked-up ears, and eyes with pupils which contract by day into a mere slit. They are quite distinct from dogs (although wolves are not), and will not be interbred, though stories are told to the contrary. The smell of a fox is disgusting to a dog, and quite sufficient to distinguish it.
If the present writer takes a simpler view of the kinds and species of foxes than that adopted by many naturalists, he must plead to a study of the subject on slightly different lines than those usually followed. The skins of all foxes are valuable, some more than others. But they are sent in hundreds of thousands, and from all parts of the northern hemisphere, to London to the great fur-sales. There these differences can be studied as they can be studied nowhere else. As the habits and structure of foxes are much alike, allowing for differences of climate, and the discrepancies in size, not more than can be accounted for by abundance or scarcity of food, it seems pretty certain that these animals are some of the few, almost alone among mammals, showing almost every variety of coloring, from black to white, from splendid chameleon-red to salmon-pink, and many exquisite shades of brown, gray and silver. In the East, from Asia Minor to China, red, gray, and yellow fox skins are the lining of every man's winter wraps. Splendid mixed robes are made by the Chinese by inserting portions of cross fox-skins into coats of cut sable, giving the idea that it is fur of a new animal.
The COMMON FOX. the foundation or type of all the above, is the best known carnivorous animal in this country. Abroad its habits do not greatly differ, except that, not being hunted much with hounds, it is less completely nocturnal. It drops its young in a dugout early in April. Thither the mother carries food till late in June, when the cubs come out, and often move to a wood or corn field. there they are still fed, but learn to do little on their own account by catching mice and moles. by late September the hounds come cub-hunting, partly to kill off superfluous foxes, partly to educate the young hounds, and to teach the foxes to fear them and to make them leave cover easily. four or five cubs in a litter are commonly seen. the distance which a fox will run is extraordinary. The following is a true account of one of the most remarkable runs ever known. the hounds were those of Mr. Tom Smith, master of the Hambledon Hunt. He was the man of whom another famous sportsman said that if he were a fox he should prefer to be hunted by a pack of hounds rather than by Tom Smith with a stick in his hand. The fox was found in a cover called Markwells, at one o'clock in the afternoon in December, near Petersfield. It crossed into Sussex, and ran into an earth in Grafham Hill a little before dark. The fox had one twenty-seven miles. The hounds had forty miles to go back to kennel that night, and three only found their way home four days afterwards. Dog-foxes assemble in considerable numbers when a vixen is about in spring, and at all times common foxes are sociable creatures, though not actually living in societies. Sometimes as many as five or six are found in a single earth. Two years ago five foxes and a badger were found in one near Romford. They eat mice, beetles, rats, birds, game, poultry, and frogs. If there are plenty of rabbit, they will not touch other game. They hunt along the railway-lines for dead birds killed by the telegraph wires. In the New Forest they also go down to the shore and pick up dead fish. One in the writer's possession was shot when carrying away a lamb from a sheepfold near the cliffs of Sidmouth, in Devon. the shepherd thought it was a marauding dog, and lay in wait with a gun.
