File:The fox (1906) (14783839672).jpg

Identifier: foxdale00dale (find matches)
Title: The fox
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Dale, T. F. (Thomas Francis), 1858-1923
Subjects: Foxes Hunting
Publisher: London New York Bombay : Longmans, Green, and Co.
Contributing Library: Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Tufts University

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cubs are everso eagerly engaged in play, when the vixen utters awarning note they are gone. The idea that the earthis a place of safety when danger threatens remainswith them, and although foxes spend most of theiractive life above ground, yet the earth is always arefuge to be sought in the moment of danger. I haveknown a litter bred in a small spinny to return thitherwhen hard pressed from coverts many miles away. A litter of healthy young foxes scatters widelyover the country, and its members occupy suitablequiet spots. I know a covert of no very great extentwhich is kept quiet and where there are always foxes.This covert has been drawn forty times in successionand never once blank. There is no earth at all in it,yet the supply of foxes never fails. As soon as the young ones can move aboutthey come to the mouth of the earth when allis quiet. The first game is hide-and-seek, at whichcubs display great activity and cunning. In almostevery litter I have watched, there is one cub larger
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THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 27 than the rest. He is, it must be confessed, somethingof a bully. But I think that it is distinctly an ad-vantage for the race that one of each litter should bebolder, stronger, and cleverer than the others. In theevent of the mother being killed, which often happens,this cub, I believe, acts as a kind of leader and tutorto the others. In one case a rather dark-furred cubwith a white tag to his brush was considerably inadvance of his brethren, whom, however, he led a sadlife, yet greatly, I have no doubt, to their benefit. Hewould go some distance away and then carefully stalkthem, creeping, crouching, crawling stealthily onwardstill he would pounce suddenly upon them, apparentlyto their great terror. Thereupon a great fighting andsnarling arose, which was sometimes quelled by themother. On one occasion when the old vixen broughtback a crippled rabbit (in this way does she teach thecubs to kill) the dark cub was the first to seize and worryit, the others bei

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